Collision
by Midnight Mustang
Summary: What will happen when demigods meet the Cullens and the Flock? It's pretty simple: Things are going to get interesting, very fast.
1. Home, Sweet Camp

AN: I do not own any of the characters in this story so far. Okay, this takes place the summer after the Battle of the Labyrinth, about two hours after The Final Warning, and sixteen years after Breaking Dawn. Sorry, no Flock or Cullens in this chapter!

Percy's POV

I had finally made it year without getting expelled! So now I had an entire summer to look forward to, knowing I would be able to return to school next fall. Assuming, of course, that I survived that long. This would be the summer I decided the entire fate of the world, the summer that the prophecy that had hung over my head for so long came true. Still, the thought of returning to Camp Half-Blood and seeing everyone made feel almost giddy. I raced out of school, surrounded by totally normal humans. I saw my mom parked out in front, with all my of my camp stuff in the backseat. I climbed in and we headed toward Camp Half-Blood.

Too long of a car ride later, I waved good bye while my mom drove away. I climbed up the hill to my favorite place on the planet carrying my stuff over my shoulder.

I got to Thalia's tree and said hello to Peleus. I looked over to the camp sprawled below me. Life may be drastically different by the end of this summer, but at least I was where I belonged.

I saw Annabeth walking towards me. I wondered if she was still mad at me for making her tell me the last line in the prophecy.

Annabeth's POV

I had arrived yesterday, because a flight was easier to get on a Thursday than Friday. Plus, it wasn't as crowded. I had already unpacked all my stuff, and was passing the time until dinner by practicing in the sword fighting arena. I had a bad feeling I was going to be needing it soon. I heard the hunting horn sound and went to get dinner when I saw a familiar figure on top of Half-Blood Hill. Percy. Why hadn't anybody told me he was coming today? Then again, I thought, almost everybody had come today.

I started walking over to him when I remembered the last time I had seen him. His eyes had been filled with unvoiced hurt, and I wondered how he would react to seeing me again. Nevertheless, I climbed up the hill until I was right in front of him.

"Hey, Seaweed Brain!" I said.

"Hey, Wise Girl." We turned around walked toward his cabin. I had thought it would be really awkward, not having seen each other for almost a year after a big argument, but it wasn't. We talked about how he hadn't blown up his school since orientation, various monsters we fought, etc. I told him Tyson was coming tomorrow, and he seemed really happy.

He walked into the gray sea rock cabin, and tossed his stuff onto one of the beds. Then we walked to the dining pavilion. Inside, almost everyone had already started eating. They stared at Percy and I, but some waved and said hi. Chiron came up to greet Percy in his centaur form, and I headed towards the Athena table to eat with my half-siblings.

Percy POV

It was good to see Annabeth again. I'm relieved she wasn't mad at me for making her tell me the prophecy. It was almost like everything was back to normal. When Chiron came up to talk to me, I felt completely at ease. That is, until I saw Chiron's face.

"Percy," he began, "I have bad news. Kronos is starting to gather his forces again. Our border has been weakened by an almost constant strain of monsters. I fear that if, or more likely, when, an attack comes, we won't be able to keep them away. Since you are so close to turning sixteen," -I flinched at the mention of my prophecy- "he probably has come to capture you. I normally wouldn't trouble you, but, since it all revolves around you, you should know."

"Gee, thanks." I said dryly. Chiron gave me a troubled smile, then trotted back over to the head table. I saw Dionysus wasn't there, so he was probably trying to recruit more of the miner gods. Even Chiron's news still couldn't fully dampen the feeling that swelled inside of me. Everything was as normal as life this summer would be, and I savored it, because, deep down, I knew it wouldn't last. So wasn't all that surprised when a couple campers let out a scream as some monster, or monsters, attacked the camp boundary and broke through.

AN: I won't threaten not to write anymore if I don't get a certain number of reviews, because I think that's mean. Some people just do not like to review, and I am one of those people. However, I do LOVE getting reviews. . . .


	2. Odd Preparations

AN: Okay, I'm a bit shocked. I had this up for about thirty minutes, and I already had two reviews! Not to mention an insanely short chapter. . . This chapter is longer, however. It might also be _really_ weird, so I might be editing it later, but I really wanted to get it up. Sorry, still no Flock or Cullens, they will probably come in the chapter after the next. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot, I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THESE CHARACTERS!!! I also had some help from an amazing friend of mine. If you're reading this, and you know who you are, THANKS!!!!!!

Annabeth's POV

I heard Silena Beauregard scream and point to something behind me. I looked to see two massive hellhounds walking through the camp's borders like they weren't there.

Peleus, the camp's dragon, roared with fury, and I saw launch himself at the nearest hellhound to him. Then I saw another shape fly into the other one and they fell to the ground, and growling erupted from them. I was surprised I could hear them for all the way over here.

I ran over to where the four creatures fought furiously. A few other campers, including Percy, Clarisse, and Grover came with me. Percy and I fought the one that was attacked by the black shape, which I just realized was Mrs. O'Leary.

I put on my Yankees hat and snuck up behind it. Percy distracted it and I was able to stab it with my celestial bronze knife. The hellhound vaporized, and I looked around for the other hellhound. I realized it must have been defeated as well, but there were some people that hadn't been there before.

"Tyson! Thalia! Nice timing!" I heard Percy say as he walked over. Tyson hugged Percy so hard that Percy's eyes were bugging out of his head a little, but it was obvious he was happy to have his half-brother back at camp. Thalia said hi to everyone and looked around. I realized I still had my Yankees hat on and took it off.

"Wow," she said, "I can't believe how much I've missed this place." Chiron came cantering up. The rest of the campers came up behind him.

"Well done. I see you've succeeded," he said. "Thalia, Tyson, welcome back. I fear this is only the beginning of the attacks this summer."

"How did they get into camp?" Thalia asked.

"Our borders have been weakened," Chiron explained, "it seems they will not work properly."

Something didn't feel right. Why were they're only two monsters? It seems kind of strange. . . .

"What about the Golden Fleece?" Thalia continued.

"My dear girl, we are dealing with forces greater than the Golden Fleece," Chiron said grimly. This was met with silence.

"Chiron?" I began, "Why were there only two of them? Our borders are weakened, but there needs to have been someone to fully defeat it."

"Annabeth, you're right." Chiron turned grimly to the campers. We quickly joined them. "Unfortunately, it is time once again for battle. I do not think we will be able to win this time. Therefore, I suggest we all start preparing for a mass exodus."

A voice piped up from the back of the crowd of demigods. "So we're running away?"

Chiron sighed. "That is the basic idea." Almost instantly protests broke out, mainly from the Ares campers. "I understand. But the time has come when Camp Half-Blood cannot offer the protection it once could. So, tonight, get some rest, because tomorrow the preparations will begin." And with that, he went back to the big house.

Suddenly he stopped and turned around. "Will the heads of the cabins talk with me at the Big House for a moment, please?" We all followed him.

Once inside, Chiron motioned for us to sit down. As we did, he began speaking.

"As you know, the news is bad. If we are attacked, we will not hold up. I fear the only way to ensure our survival is to flee."

"Chiron, where will we go?" asked Silena.

"You will stay with some old friends of mine in Forks, Washington. I assure you, they will be very welcoming, but a bit strange." We all looked at each other.

"Strange how?" Percy said. "Strange as in crazy, or strange as in five heads and six arms?"

Chiron smiled. "Don't worry. You will see when you arrive. We have more important matters to discuss." We all felt the mood in the room darken a little. He looked at Percy. "Percy, I want you to work on transportation. Everyone will be using Pegasi, and I want you to get everyone situated on a certain Pegasus, and also plan on which Pegasus will be carrying what supplies." That was a god idea, considering Poseidon, Percy's dad, created horses and Percy can speak with them.

He turned to Clarisse. "You and the Ares cabin will be in charge of the military. Make sure all necessary weapons are transported."

This continued until he came to me. "Annabeth, I want you and the other Athena campers to organize everything. Make a list and check in with everyone." Then he spoke to everyone. "I want all of you to check in with the Athena cabin. They will be the ones double checking everything."

"Um, Chiron?" Percy began. Chiron nodded at him. "About the Pegasi. . . We don't know when we'll be leaving, right? It might be while we're being attacked?" Chiron nodded. "Then I think we should make packs that we can easily sling over their backs, and quickly. Also, I think we should ride without saddles. Bareback. Just with bridles. We could have each Pegasus' bridle on a hook outside of their stall. That way we can leave on shorter notice."

Chiron nodded slowly. "That's an excellent idea. Well, it is very late, so I suggest you get some sleep." And with that, we all left the Big House.

The outside air was like a slap in the face. Percy, Thalia, and I walked side by side in the darkness to the cabins.

"Why do want to ride bareback?" I asked Percy.

"For the reasons I said back there. And, since we're going to have to cross the country, we should make as easy on their backs as possible. We don't want to give them saddle sores." He kind of surprised me with his horse knowledge. Oh, right: son of Poseidon.

"Oh." Nice Annabeth. Real intelligent.

"Well, see you." We all went separate ways to our cabins.

The next morning, the sun was shining brightly through the windows. Too brightly.

"Ah! I overslept!" I never overslept! I leapt out of bed and began getting dressed as fast as I could. I looked out the window to see camp already in full swing. I ran outside and almost ran into Chiron.

"Ah, Annabeth, I was just about to come look for you. Do you know if Percy has gotten up yet? He wasn't at breakfast either."

"He probably overslept as well, Chiron. I'll wake him up." I walked over to gray sea rock bunker-like cabin. Sure enough, he was there, snoring away. Figures. I grabbed a pillow off the other bed and threw it at his head.

He jolted awake, looking confused.

"Why do I have a pillow on my head?" he asked to himself. Then he noticed me, cracking up at his expression.

"Annnabeth!" he said. He threw the pillow at my head, which I ducked.

"Just get up Seaweed Brain. Maybe you can make it in time for lunch." He looked down at his watch and swore. I went back to my cabin to get some writing supplies. I had a feeling I was going to need them.

I pretty much spent my day going around camp and making lists.

I had finally finished, so I took my list to Chiron. Chiron read over it, nodding every now and then.

"Very good. However, you have forgotten two things." I racked my brains trying to remember what I missed. Then it became very obvious.

"Oh!" I gasped. "The Oracle!"

"Right. We also will need to transport all the items in the attic as well." I groaned. There were hundreds of items up there. "We don't want them to get into the hands of the Titans."

"No," I agreed. That would be very bad. I marked it down on my lists.

"Why don't you go give that to Percy? He will need to know how many things we are transporting."

"Okay." I went to go find him. Then I stopped and turned around. "Um, Chiron?"

"Yes?"

"How are we going to get the Oracle on a Pegasus?"

"I'm sure you will find a way." Great. Now I just had to find Seaweed Brain. This proved much harder than you would think. He wasn't in the sword arena, or the Pegasus stable, nor was he in his cabin or climbing the rock wall. I checked the beach. Of course, the last place I look is where he is.

Percy just sat there, staring out to sea. I came over and sat next to him.

"Hey," I said.

He smiled. "Hey. Do you need something?"

"Do I need to need something to talk with you? But actually, yes, I do need something. I have the lists."

Percy groaned. He held out his hand. I stuck the roll of paper in it. His eyes widened.

"Chiron wasn't kidding when he said we were bringing everything, was he?" he said. I shook my head. He started to read. It took him a while. I saw his widen when he got to the bottom.

"The _Oracle?_" I laughed at his expression.

"Would you want to leave it behind for the Titans?"

"NO, of course not, but how are we going to keep it from falling off?"

I sighed. "I have absolutely no idea."


	3. Flying Lessons

AN: SERIOUSLY, PEOPLE, I WOULD NOT BE WRITING ON FANFICTION IF I OWNED ANY OF THESE CHARACTERS!!! Oh, and if you thought the last chapter was weird. . . . Just wait. The Cullens will probably be in the next chapter. Thanks to all reviewers!! Oh, and HUGE THANKS to a friend of mine, who I can finally name, BraveMustang, who is pretty much co-writing this story. BraveMustang, you may recognize some names in here!

Percy's POV

One of the hugest tasks I've ever had to complete was cleaning out Geryon's meat eating horse stables. Right now, this is making that look like a walk in the park.

I have to make sure around eighty campers get comfortable on a specific Pegasus, and make sure hundreds of supplies and items, including a mummified hippie, get taken with us, possibly in the middle of a battle. Sure, that's not a huge operation at all. Piece of cake.

Annabeth gave me these lists she's been making all day. I'm not kidding when I say they're five pages long. EACH! It must have taken me at least an hour read them. I pretty much just skimmed through them at first, just to get an idea of how many different kind of packs we're going to need.

My worst problem by far is going to be the Oracle. I guess we could make a training saddle type thing like they use for young children. Ugh. I can guarantee there's going to be at least one Pegasus hating me for the rest of my life.

Speaking of Pegasi, I went to visit my friend Blackjack. Since Blackjack had been rescued off Luke Castellan's cruise ship of doom, he had quickly taken control of Camp Half-Blood's enormous Pegasus herd.

_Hey, boss,_ he said. _Rumors are flying. Talk comin' of escaping something bad. . . _

"Hey, Blackjack. Yep, we might be getting out of here pretty soon. That's why I'm here. We're going to need you're help. We're going to kinda be flying across the country, and practically bringing camp with us."

_Hey, whatever, boss. You need something, just ask us. We'll help ya out._ He nodded his head and flapped his wings.

"Thanks, Blackjack. We're going to have work to do, so keep everyone on their toes, er, hooves, okay?"

_Sure, boss._

"See you tomorrow." I walked out of the stables as the dinner horn sounded. I walked into the Dining Pavilion to see Tyson already eating. Everyone else was just walking in. Chiron stood up at the front and started speaking.

"As you all know, we are all preparing to leave Camp Half-Blood. Since this will all be done on Pegasus, you will arrive in front of the stables by cabin. First will be the Apollo cabin, then Hermes. . ." Chiron continued through the cabins. "Percy will be giving out Pegasus assignments and last minute instruction on bareback riding, as well as packs to certain individuals with vital supplies. While we are on the topic of transportation, does anyone want to be responsible for transporting the Oracle?"

No one raised their hands. I didn't blame them.

Chiron sighed. "Fine. We will be drawing a name from a hat tomorrow. Until then, please enjoy your meal."

Not surprisingly, the meal was unusually subdued. I think six people were talking and the rest were completely silent after they gave their offering.

For many of us, camp was the one place we were safe. Some of us had grown up here. It was hard to think of Kronos taking over.

No one stayed any longer than necessary. We all left as soon as we had finished practically inhaling our food. I found Annabeth sitting on the porch outside of the Athena cabin. I sat down next to her.

"Hey, Annabeth? Can ask a favor?"

"Sure, Seaweed Brain." She looked a bit confused.

"Tomorrow I have to get everyone matched up with a Pegasus and I was wondering if you could help me record everything."

"Okay. How many sheets of paper should I bring?" she teased.

I sighed. "You can start with a hundred." She made a face. "Hey, at least you don't have to actually do any work. All you have to do is record the work."

"True. Well, since you have all that _work_ to do tomorrow, you'd better get some sleep. Night, Seaweed Brain."

"Night." I went back to my cabin.

The next morning I actually got up on time, thank the gods. It was a sunny day, and there was almost no wind at all, perfect conditions for flying.

I began getting all the Pegasi out. They would all follow me with or without a rope, but the other campers would need them. Before Blackjack came, there were about 100 Pegasi at camp. Since Blackjack came and brought some of his friends, there were now about 115.

That was just enough to carry the eighty campers, plus the satyrs, which would ride double with the dryads and carry pots with their specific plant in it, and all the supplies Annabeth had on her list. It was going to be a very long day.

Annabeth's POV

The morning after Percy asked me for help, I walked out to the stables. I had a stack of papers under my arm.

Percy walked out of the stables with ten Pegasi following him. I knew he didn't need them, but he had three lead ropes thrown over each shoulder, and two in each hand. All the Pegasi walked quietly behind him.

Contrary to popular belief, not all Pegasi are white. The one in the ancient legends was, of course, but just look at Blackjack. The ones following Percy were extremely diverse. There was one that was a creamy gold color, which I think is called palomino, and a one that was rich brown the color of dark chocolate.

I walked over to where Percy was tying them up at the many hitching posts outside the stable.

"So who's up first?" I said. Percy jumped.

"Annabeth!" he said. "Geese, you nearly gave me a heart attack."

"Sorry."

"That's okay. The Apollo cabin is up first." I wrote down their names. "And here they come."

Sure enough, the Apollo campers were walking across the grass. They stopped in front of Percy.

"All right, pick a Pegasus." They all walked up to a certain Pegasus. Percy and I went down the row and recorded the Pegasus' name.

"Okay, come with me. I'll show you their stalls which you must remember like your lives depend on it, because they do. You'll grab the bridle that's hanging on the door." Percy started walking around the tables, pointing out stalls until he came to Blackjack.

"Hey, Blackjack. Remember what I said yesterday?" Blackjack nodded. Whoa.

"Good. We're going to be working today." He grabbed Blackjack's black bridle and quickly placed over his head. It blended in perfectly with his coat so that you couldn't even see it. Percy led Blackjack out.

"Let's go," He said to me. We walked out to where the Apollo campers all had their Pegasus bridled. Every camper could do that much, at least. We could ride pretty well, too, with saddles of course. Bareback was a whole other story.

"How many of you have ridden bareback?" Half the cabin raised their hands. "Cool. You can get on then and start warming up. The rest of you, watch what I do."

Percy pulled Blackjack's reins over his head and walked to his side. He placed his hands on his back and easily pulled himself up.

"If you're riding a tall Pegasus, count to three, and on three, jump. Your Pegasus will help you out."

I watched as a shorter camper started counting to three. As soon as he said one, the gray Pegasus bent his knees, so the camper was able to easily able to put his hands on its back. Two: The camper bent his knees. Three: The Pegasus straightened its legs suddenly at the same time the camper jumped and swung his right leg over its back. This gave him the extra momentum to propel him onto the Pegasus' back. The other campers quickly caught on and within five minutes, everyone was about to take off.

Percy looked down at me. He stuck his hand out.

"Here, Annabeth," he said. I took his hand and out my other hand on Blackjack's withers and, with some help from Percy, pulled myself onto Blackjack. Blackjack snorted and tossed his head before launching himself into the sky. I had about three seconds to throw my arms around Percy so I didn't fall off.

Once Blackjack achieved a steady altitude, Percy turned his head back to me. His sea green eyes are bright with amusement, but something about his expression makes him look like he's in pain.

"Um, Annabeth? Could please not break my ribs?" That's when I realized I was squeezing him so tight he could barely breathe.

"Oops," I said as I relaxed my death grip on him. My cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

"That's okay." He turned his attention back to the Apollo campers. "Since all we're going to be doing when we leave is flying, and flying for long periods of time, that's all we're going to do for the next thirty minutes. I think you should just keep your Pegasus moving."

Normally, none of the Apollo campers would have paid him any attention, but now everyone obeyed without question. I guess it had something to do with the fact that Percy actually knew something they didn't.

Percy made Blackjack hover above everyone else, and asked me to put stars by the camper's name that seemed like they were the most comfortable. After thirty minutes, Percy said they should land, and everyone took their sweaty Pegasus to get a bath. I had a feeling the sweat had more to do with the heat than over exertion. Most of the Pegasi were prancing on the ends of their lead ropes in high spirits. Blackjack landed, and Percy and I slid off.

"Blackjack, you can go cool off for a while until the next campers get here." Blackjack must have said something funny, because Percy was laughing. Blackjack let out a whinny that I swear was a laugh.

"What'd miss?" I said, a little offended.

"Nothing." Percy still had an I'm-trying-really-hard-not-to-laugh smile on though, so I guessed it was something.

I rolled my eyes. "Who's next, Seaweed Brain?"

"Hermes." I groaned. Hermes was the largest cabin, with 25 campers.

We repeated the process with the Hermes cabin, which had so many campers that there were near collisions almost every minute. We continued through the list with the Ares cabin (Clarisse looked like she was going to breathe fire when Percy had to help her get control of the light chestnut named Sabrina), then with the Aphrodite cabin.

The Athena cabin was last. I went to go join my half-siblings and Thalia, who decided she would come with us instead of by herself. I saw that Tyson was coming too. Percy came out leading twelve Pegasi. Blackjack walked beside him. It seemed like they were laughing about something.

We all walked over. I saw Tyson walk to the white Pegasus Guido he had ridden last summer after our journey through the Labyrinth.

I heard Percy tell everyone to go up to a Pegasus. We went down the lines again, recording names. Thalia had chosen a big black stallion with a white patch dotted with black spots covering his back hips. They seemed to get along great which I thought was funny after learning the horse's name was Thunder.

We came to the last Pegasus in the row, which was the one I would ride. He had a unique coat, but I thought it looked beautiful. He had a light gray coat that was clouded in a rosy brown along his barrel and legs, and dark brown spots on his hips. He had a small heart outlined in white on his left front shoulder. His mane and tail were dark gray, and his wings were light silver that seemed to shimmer.

"His name is Phinny," Percy said.

"He's gorgeous." Phinny looked at me with kind, intelligent eyes. I noticed his head also had some brown around his eyes and throat. His muzzle was dark grey, the same color as his mane and tail.

"Well, let's go." Percy led the way into the stable yet again. He led the way to the various stalls, and came to Phinny's last, which was next to Blackjack's. I picked up the bridle off the hook. We all went outside and began bridling. Phinny shoved his head into the bridle and grabbed the bit in his teeth.

I spent some time looking at Phinny's bridle. It was practically a work of art. I wonder who made it. Running up the sides were blue and green hearts with silver wings. The rings where the reins attached to the bit were shaped like hearts with wings. The reins themselves were blue, green, silver, and gold weaved together.

Percy came over and talked to me for a bit while the others mounted. Thalia was stalling, because she was scared of heights. Am the only one who finds it ironic a son of Poseidon is giving a flying lesson to a daughter of Zeus?

"You and Phinny will get along great," he said. "He does a have a bit of a strange history, though."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, he wasn't always a Pegasus. He used to be an ordinary horse. Well, he wasn't exactly ordinary. He had an extraordinary talent for teaching." Percy's voice took on a tone most people use when telling a legend. "He was able to adapt to what the rider knew and needed to learn. He was tricky, and always provided a challenge. People of all ages would ride him. Most would ride him and learn and never know what an amazing horse he was. Some people looked past his craftiness and saw how special he was-and is. They loved him, and he loved them back.

"When he was dying, and everyone was around him, he actually shed a tear; he was so upset at the thought of leaving those who loved him. My father and Zeus noticed this, and decided he should be rewarded for his great dedication to those around him. They turned him into a Pegasus and transported him to Camp Half-Blood so he could continue to do what he loves: teach. They promised him that one day he would be able to go back and meet with the ones he loves and taught.

"His bridle and reins are made out of the love he and his students shared. The hearts symbolize their love, his love, and the wings are showing how they gave each other's hearts the ability to fly and move on to greatness. The reins give him and his rider a special connection like he and his old students shared. He will guide you as much, if not more, as you guide him. Trust me; you two will become friends before you know it."

He smiled. "Phinny says he looks forward to flying with you." He walked over to tell Thalia to hurry. I didn't realize I had tears in my eyes until then. I wiped them quickly, not wanting anyone.

That's when I realized Phinny was actually pretty tall. I started counting and Phinny obediently bent his knees. I placed my hands on top of his back, and, on three, was launched on top of his back. I picked up the reins which were said to give me a connection to this special Pegasus. I couldn't consciously sense a difference, however.

Percy had persuaded Thalia to get on Thunder, and he had mounted Blackjack. Everyone else was on and ready to go.

Unlike the other cabins, we all took off at the same time, thirteen powerful Pegasi pushing off the ground and whipping out their wings in unison. I had to admit, it was an amazing feeling. Even Thalia seemed to be relaxing as the Pegasi swooped and glided in the sky.

Percy was like a whole different person. He let out a yell of pure joy as Blackjack flipped in a loop across the sky.

"Show-off!" I yelled as he and Blackjack sped by. I was smiling though, and when he circled back to me, I saw he was too.

I could feel Phinny wanted to go a bit faster, so I let him. I leaned forward on his neck a little. His silver wings propelled us through the sky, and Blackjack and Percy caught up with us, then Thalia and Thunder coming up beside them until everyone joined us and we were flying thirteen across.

It was amazing how I knew that I was completely safe, even though today was the first day I had ever ridden bareback. I could feel Phinny's wings powerfully moving through the air, his legs and hooves moving like he was running, and I felt like Chiron, like I was a centaur, a part of the Pegasus beneath me.

Even though I knew we all had other things to do, I wished that this moment could last forever.

AN: Okay, so I made up a lot of Pegasi, and I'm not sure how many they're at Camp Half-Blood, but work with me here. Percy may also be a bit OOC, but we rarely hear about him with Pegasus, so how would we know? I was rereading this when I noticed this chapter would probably be better adapted and used as a oneshot while I replaced this chapter. Please REVIEW and tell me what you think. I probably will not be updating until I decide, though. One last note:

Our Dear Phinny,

RIP, you have finally been given your wings. Let your heart finally fly free.


	4. Unexpected Guests

AN: HOW MANY MORE TIMES DO I HAVE TO TYPE THIS? I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING!!!! Once again, thanks to BRAVEMUSTANG who is pretty much co-writing this story. Please review and tell me if I should make chapter three an oneshot and redo that chapter. Finally, what you've probably been waiting for: THE CULLENS!!! YAY!!

crimsonsword142, That's close, but not exactly. He wasn't mine, but. . . okay, it's a long and sad story.

Percy's POV

The night after everyone got bareback lessons had to be one of the worst nights of my life, or at least one of them. I've faced an angry war god, countless monsters, had my best friends disappear, not to mention the horrible Battle of the Labyrinth and its aftermath, but this was one of the worst. Maybe equal with the Battle of the Labyrinth.

Everything was going fine, at first. Chiron drew Silena Beauragard's name out of the hat, which meant that she would have to carry the Oracle (Ouch).

It was really depressing, with everyone knowing that in a few days we might never see Camp Half-Blood again. It didn't make the enormous pile of work that still needed to be completed any easier.

The fact that storm clouds were moving in as well wasn't helping either. Apparently Zeus had too many other things to do, so he didn't protect camp from weather anymore. The fact that we were leaving soon didn't put it high up on the priority list. Chiron didn't want Thalia wearing herself out trying to keep the weather good, either.

Everyone was so tired that I actually saw a Hermes camper fall asleep at the dinner table. It looked like a pretty good idea to me.

Chiron announced some changes in our agenda. The dryads would be staying with the satyrs here at camp. Most of the dryads looked relieved; it would have been too hard for them to leave camp, both emotionally and physically. The satyrs looked they were pretty happy as well; they wanted a chance to protect the camp's gardens and forest from the Titans.

Another change was that Chiron would be traveling separate from us. He would follow us from the ground, but he had to make a few stops along the way. He said I would meet him at an airport about a half hour flight away from his friends, whose identity he was still keeping a secret. He said it "wasn't his secret to tell", which really confused me. I mean, if we're going to be meeting them and staying with them, shouldn't we know who they are?

He told us to pack the necessary items tonight "just in case". I wondered if something was bothering him. He's not usually this cryptic or pessimistic. Usually he is really positive. It certainly didn't help my outlook at all.

We all went back to our cabins exhausted. Even Tyson was subdued, which was rare. Usually he's the one keeping everyone in high spirits.

"Percy," he said, "I have a present for you." He held out his hands. In them was a big round shield, almost exactly like the one I hit Kampe in the face with. Instead of just having pictures of our adventures in the Sea of Monsters, though, it had pictures of our journey through the Labyrinth and the battle after. There was one of Grover poking a Sphinx in the eye with a thigh bone, one of a volcano exploding, and even one of Kampe with one of her bear heads wearing plastic sunglasses and dip-n-dots in her hair. There was one of Briares pelting Kampe with rocks (Tyson really seemed to like watching Kampe getting beat up), one of me throwing Greek fire on a hellhound, and one of Annabeth and I fighting Kampe.

"Thanks, big guy." He gave me a bear hug so that I couldn't breathe. I helped him start packing his few clothes, and then I packed my own. I made sure my wristwatch/newly replaced shield was secured on my wrist, and then fell asleep quickly.

My dreams were strange. They were dark and mysterious, shifting before I got a good look at what was going on.

When I woke up, it was sudden. It was light outside my window, so at first I thought I overslept again. That's when I realized the light was coming in flashes, and the noise was too loud to be a day at camp, no matter how busy. I realized that the noise was swords and shields clanging together. Oh no.

"Tyson!" I yelled. He woke up instantly and realized what was happening. We threw on the first clothes we found, grabbed our packs, and ran outside.

It was pouring rain for the first time I could remember in camp. The earlier clouds coming in had let all Hades loose, so it was your typical raining battlefield that you always see in the movies. The lightning was flashing every thirty seconds or so.

Everyone had run out by now it seemed, and I saw some people stuffing supplies into packs and tying them to Pegasi in the stable. We had put all Pegasi that weren't carrying a person in the back, so they were easy to identify.

I found Annabeth running out of the Athena cabin with her backpack slung over one shoulder.

"Annabeth! What in Hades in going on?"

"Kronos' army is coming! We're evacuating." My heart sunk. We weren't prepared enough.

That's when the approaching army crested Half-Blood Hill. Our already weak borders didn't even slow them down. Our warriors ran out to meet them, and the battle begun.

The fighting was intense. I could see we were getting our butts kicked, mainly because we were all trying to fight with backpacks over our shoulders. An enemy half-blood showed up in front of me and I uncapped Riptide. He seemed kind of confused when I pulled out a pen until it grew into a slightly glowing sword. He attempted to disarm me by twisting my sword and his, but I knocked his out of his hands first. I ran towards where Chiron was banging on cabin doors, making sure everyone was out.

"Percy!" he yelled when he saw me, "Let them out!" I needed no more instruction than that.

_Blackjack!_ I yelled in my mind. _Let everyone out! Apollo's first! Bridle in teeth!_ I heard Blackjack start passing the news around to the other Pegasi, while I ran around fighting random monsters and telling the cabins in order where to go. Hermes and Apollo were first, because they could shoot arrows from the sky. I saw Silena and Beckendorf carrying the Oracle around the fringes of the battle. Well, at least the camp wasn't in complete panic mode. I came over and helped them out by making sure no one tried to attack them.

Once they were safely on Pegasi balancing the Oracle between them, I decided to find Blackjack. As soon as I made up my mind he was right in front of me, surprisingly calm.

I grabbed the bridle out of his teeth and stuffed into my backpack. I gripped his mane and soon we were hovering over the battle. I showed lost Pegasi where their riders were, grateful that most of them remembered who they were. Soon everyone was in the air. One hundred and fifteen Pegasi started flying west as fast as they could.

As we flew away, I turned around and saw the victorious faces of the Titan's army, and the empty camp. Camp Half-Blood had fallen to the Titans.

Chiron's POV

I knew as soon as the alarm was sounded that we were in trouble. I told Percy to let the Pegasi out, and in minutes, though it felt like hours, everyone was gone.

I knew I only had a manner of minutes, so I into Percy's cabin. The repaired saltwater fountain was glowing. I threw a drachma in.

"Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, accept my offering, and please show me Carlisle Cullen, Forks, Washington, and quickly!"

Carlisle's POV

"Carlisle!" I heard Alice yell, despite the fact that I could have heard her if she had whispered.

"Hunting trip!" she practically sang. I smiled. We'd just moved back into our Forks home in Washington at the beginning of the school year, and it was our first summer here. Alice was especially excited. She loved this home better than all our others. This was the one place where we weren't total anomalies. There were others that shared our secret here too. Plus, this place held so many memories, for Edward and Bella especially.

I chuckled a little bit when I thought about Bella. She had surprised us all with her newborn stage. She barely went through it at all. However, once the red had faded from her eyes completely, she lost her strength, but kept her speed. The only one faster in the family was Edward. It was interesting though, I had thought we kept our abilities and disabilities when we were changed. Then again, no one knew how fast Bella might have been as a human if she hadn't fallen every time she tried to run.

I turned off my laptop. I walked out to the stream where Alice, Jasper, Emmet, Rosalie, and Esme were waiting. We would stop by Edward and Bella's cottage on our way. Jacob and Renesmee were living in La Push, taking care of Billy.

Soon we were on our way North, miles of forest smoothly disappearing. Two by two, we split off, each going to hunt somewhere different. Esme and I were tracking a large herd of deer when I heard Alice cry out.

"Carlisle! Look out!" As a force of habit I came to an immediate stop, Esme by my side still.

In front of me was a familiar face with a scraggly beard, an orange shirt with "Camp Half-Blood" on it, and a bow under one arm and a quiver slung over his shoulder. However, where his middle and legs should have been, was the body of a white stallion.

"Carlisle! Thank the gods. Um, I'm not entirely sure how to phrase this, but I have all of Camp Half-Blood headed your way." He sounded desperate.

It was good thing I was a vampire. Otherwise my brain would not have been able to focus for a few minutes, and it sounded as if time was important.

"Chiron, what's wrong? Why does it look like you're underwater?"

"I can't explain now, I don't have much time. I got the campers out and told them to go to Forks but I don't know how long they'll be. I'm probably about to captured any second. Just, please, try to help them."

"You didn't tell them-"

"Of course not." He looked over his shoulder. He looked back at me. I realized he was panicking, as much as Chiron ever panics. "_Di immortales_!" He waved a hand through image, and he was gone.

I turned to my family. They were all staring at me. Even Alice was stunned, and she saw this happening.

"I think we're going to be having some guests for a while."


	5. Can It Get Any Worse?

AN: People, I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING!!!!! I was told that there is a section for crossovers. Um, oops. Sorry, but I'm not going to move this anywhere. It's fine where it is. If you have a problem with this story because I didn't know it was supposed in a different category, that's fine. You don't have to read it. It's mainly PJO anyway.

Annabeth's POV

We had been traveling for about an hour. We had outrun the horrible storm that had hit camp, but the sky was black with the stars shining brightly. The wind had started picking up, and we were flying right into it.

I wasn't really paying attention, but suddenly Percy and Blackjack were beside Phinny and I. Blackjack was almost invisible. I could only tell where he was because he covered the stars like shadow. I couldn't see Percy at all, but I heard him yell.

"We need to land!" Blackjack was almost impossible to see, but it seemed like he was straining into the wind, his neck stretched out. He had been working all day, only to be woken in the middle of the night. Of course, I could only see where he wasn't.

"I know!" I yelled back. I saw Percy going around, telling people to start descending. Slowly we lost altitude until we were over some kind of forest. We landed in some clearing. It was pretty large, and we managed to fit everyone in. I slid off Phinny only to have my legs collapse from exhaustion.

I didn't fall, though, and I was trying to figure out why. My brain wasn't cooperating the moment. That's when I realized there were arms holding me somewhat upright.

I looked up to see Percy. I was leaning against him. He had one arm behind my back, the other holding onto my arm. He was supporting all of my weight.

"Thanks," I muttered. His face turned red. I'm pretty sure mine did, too, but I was too tired to care. It was taking all of my concentration not to fall asleep right there.

"No problem. Are you okay?" he said.

"I'm fine. Just tired." That was a bit of an understatement.

"We all are." He looked over to where the rest campers were building a fire to keep us warm. He carefully let go of me, making sure I wasn't going to fall over. He dumped his backpack on the ground, and I put mine beside his. "I'm going to go find us some water. I think everyone could use some. We could probably use some food, too, but. . ." He shrugged.

"Okay," I said. "Be careful."

He smiled. "I will be." He turned to Blackjack. "I know you're tired, but just one more small trip, okay?" I'm assuming Blackjack responded positively, because Percy climbed on and they were gone.

I yawned. Phinny turned concerned eyes on me. It was as though he knew I was exhausted. He folded his silver wings and put his head down low. I slid his bridle off, and he wandered around in a circle, munching on the grass. I was so tired, I wanted to lay down right there and get some much needed sleep, but I helped the other campers with the fire until we had a roaring fire.

Gee, how much worse could it get? We were in the middle of a forest who knows where, while the Titan army captured and ransacked our camp!

By then, Percy had been gone for ten minutes. I was starting to worry about him when I heard wings. I looked up to see Blackjack come flying in at an amazing pace. He skidded to a stop.

My exhaustion forgotten, I ran over to them. Something was obviously wrong. Blackjack was sidestepping and circling. He wouldn't even hold still for Percy. Oh, this is not good.

Percy's eyes locked on mine, which was not an easy task considering Blackjack was having a full on panic attack. Maybe you've seen a horse spook at something. Trust me, a Pegasus flipping out is way freakier.

"Peleus is right behind us. I don't know how, but he has the Golden Fleece."

"That's great!" I was desperate for some kind of good news. But his eyes were still staring into mine with a strange emotion hidden there.

"What's wrong, Percy?"

"They're following us." His eyes were still locked on mine, and neither of us was surprised. We had known this was going to happen as soon as we knew we were leaving. Still, this meant we couldn't slow down. We would have to leave soon.

"How close are they?" I asked, dreading the answer.

"I'm not sure, one, maybe two days journey at the pace they're going now. However, if they decide to step up the pace a little. . ."

That's when I heard even more wings. These sounded louder, as if they were bigger. Soon Peleus was visible hovering over the trees. He looked down on us, as if to make sure we were okay, and then flew off.

I heard a quiet thump, and I couldn't hear the wings anymore. It appeared Peleus had landed nearby. I saw several campers from the Apollo cabin went to go check that he hadn't been harmed by the Titans as he was escaping. They soon came back nodding and reassuring the campers he was fine.

We all decided we should try to sleep before we had to get up. I used by backpack as a pillow and tried to fall asleep. I failed. We weren't using tents because the weather was good here. I wondered where _here_ actually was.

I decided to go for a walk. I walked into the woods and sat down up against a large tree, facing away from camp. I needed to think. I put my head on my knees and wrapped my arms around them. I realized I wasn't alone.

Percy sat down and leaned up against the wide tree as well. He sat with his legs crossed and his head resting against the tree. He closed his eyes, looking exhausted.

"You couldn't sleep, either?" he asked.

"Nope." I said. I sighed.

Suddenly it was just too much. Camp being taken over, being on the run, having absolutely no idea where we were, not to mention the fact that I may be losing my best friend. Although that best friend might becoming a bit more. I broke down and started sobbing, releasing the tears that I had been holding back without realizing it. I started to feel ashamed. I shouldn't be crying, I needed to be strong. It was just too much, though. I'd lost the one place I'd always been able to call home.

I felt something wrap around my shoulder. It turned out to be Percy's arm. He cautiously shuffled a bit closer until the side of my face was pressed against his chest. I didn't do anything except sob. The tears didn't soak into his shirt; if you ever need to cry on somebody, cry on a child of a sea god. You can't stain their shirt.

"It's okay, it's okay," he said. I glared at him. Of course my eyes were too full of tears to actually see anything but a couple dark blurs, but he seemed to get the message. "Okay, so it's not okay, but you know what I mean."

I drew in a shaky breath and tried to get a hold on myself. How embarrassing was this? A daughter of Athena breaking down and needing the comfort of a son of Poseidon. Okay, so the son of Poseidon happens to be my best friend, but still.

"Are you going to be okay?" he said.

"I think so. I'm sorry." I said miserably.

"That's okay." he said.

"I don't know what's wrong with me lately," I said.

"Gee, I wonder," he said sarcastically.

"But we all lost camp. Why I am I reacting like this?"

"You're not the only one. Most people just fell asleep first. We are all just so sleep deprived, none of us can think straight."

That was too true, I decided. Look at the mess we're in now. We're sitting in a forest, practically begging monsters to come and attack us. Lovely. I decided to try to change the subject.

"Where are we?"

"Near Lake Ontario."

"Oh. So we're heading towards Washington?"

"That's where Chiron wanted us to go. Besides, I don't have any other ideas."

"Neither do I." I paused for a moment. "I think we should try to get some sleep."

"Yeah." We got up and stretched. We started walking back to our camp. This time, I fell asleep almost immediately.

My first thought the next morning was that something wasn't right. My bed in the Athena cabin is nowhere near this hard. That's when I remembered.

I groaned. I sat up and tried unsuccessfully to get make my eyes focus. Eventually I could see the trees surrounding the eighty campers. I was one of the only ones awake. I realized we were lucky to find such a huge clearing.

It was really bright, as if it were later in the day. Which, after looking at the sky, I guess it was. The sun was already more than halfway across the sky. We'd slept until past noon.

More and more campers had woken up by now. Some people were staring around, trying to get their bearings. Others immediately got up and started getting ready to start traveling. Some still slept, completely oblivious.

Thalia came over to me.

"Okay, I've got to say, this is a first. You're up after me." She said. She looked she'd been up for a while.

"Hey, Thalia. Do you have any idea what time it is?"

"Not a clue. Is Percy up yet? He's got a watch."

"I have no idea." I looked around. Percy was about ten feet away, snoring. "Um, no. Hang on, I'll wake him up."

I stood up. My legs were really stiff. I managed to walk over to Percy and crouch down. I shook his shoulder.

"Seaweed Brain! Wake up!" He mumbled something. I sighed. "Thalia, could you hand me my backpack?"

Once I had my backpack, I emptied everything out. I smacked Percy in the head with it.

Almost instantly he was awake and on his feet, already getting Riptide out of his pocket. He relaxed when he saw it was just us.

"Geese, did you have to hit me? I thought I was being attacked."

"Actually, yes, I did, because you sleep heavier than an elephant." He glared at me.

Percy sighed. "Guess we should get moving."

I sighed as well. "Yeah."

Everyone was up by now. We didn't eat breakfast, because we didn't have anything to eat. Oops. I guess we missed that. By now, everyone was starving. Just one more thing completely messed up.

We all climbed onto our Pegasi, and headed west.

Max's POV

"Max? Where are we going?" Gasman said. Good question. We'd been flying around the same forest all day, and the sun was starting to set.

I saw a nice tree with enough large limbs for all of us to comfortably fit.

"There." We all slowly descended, trying to use tricks and tips picked up from the hawks we'd flown with before. I had to admit, we were getting better.

I landed in one of the lower branches, with everyone on nearby branches. Iggy and Fang set down Akila and Total at the bottom of the tree.

"Okay, people, as usual, we have no idea where we're going, or why." _Max,_ the Voice said, yes _the Voice_ said, _Hang out there for a while. They need some time._

_Who,_ I thought, _the evil scientists coming to kill us?_

_No, _the Voice said, _the people you're going to help save the world._

_Okay, this is new. I don't have to do all the work myself?_

_No, but you need to be prepared. _Wow, big shocker. That's all I get from the Voice. Advice that means nothing. Well, every now and then I get some useful advice, but not usually. Story of my life.

_Max, you're in no hurry. You have plenty of time. _That's when I realized I'd been sitting staring at the Flock with my mouth slightly open.

"Sorry. Voice giving me and update. We're just going to hang out around here for a while, okay?" The Flock nodded. "Cool. So, rest up. Goodnight." We curled up on the branches, and since it was early summer, it was a comfortable temperature. Tree branched themselves are actually quite comfortable. At least, to the Flock they are. We were all asleep within minutes.

AN: Might be slightly OOC. Sorry. This took me a long time to write. Sorry!


	6. A Day Off

AN: I OWN NOTHING!! You have no idea how hard it is not to rush this. Oh, well. Okay, I was in a REALLY random mood when I wrote this, so. . . well, just read it. You'll see what I mean.

Percy's POV

If any of us had been in any mood to appreciate the weather, it was an amazing day. The sky was clear, bright, and sunny. Our flock of Pegasi probably looked like a weird type of airplane to the few mortals below. Peleus flew beside us, the Golden Fleece draped around his shoulders like a big, wooly blanket.

We traveled for about six hours, stopping every now and then to let our Pegasi catch their breaths. When we finally landed for the last time, the sun was starting to sink. We landed on the edge of one of the Great Lakes. The sun turned the lake orange. I didn't know if that was a good or bad sign. I didn't want to know. The last thing we needed was more bad luck.

The shore we were on was quite rocky, so we went into the forest. There was no clearing this time, but the forest wasn't very thick. We could still see the lake, which I knew was Lake Superior.

The sun was setting, but we had about an hour until the sun went all the way down. Thalia, Tyson, Annabeth and I were sitting in a circle by the lake, talking about completely random things.

"Hey, Thalia," I said, "How did you persuade Artemis to let you come to Camp Half-Blood?"

"Actually, it was her idea. She thought it would be a good idea for me to help you guys out."

"That was nice of her," Annabeth said, "but doesn't she need you?"

"That's what I said. But she said it was important for me to help and train. . ." Thalia gasped. "Wait! Do you think she knew what was going to happen?"

"Maybe." I sighed. It's kind of funny how, once you're not about to die, being on the run is really boring. We had absolutely nothing to do. We started tossing ideas around. Truth or dare, dance off, you name it, we thought of it. Nothing seemed like a good idea when you're in the middle of a forest.

I looked at the lake. The water was no longer orange, it had had turned a midnight blue.

"I don't think we should try to go any farther tomorrow," I said.

"Actually, I think we could all use a day off," Annabeth said.

"Okay." Thalia said. We spent the rest of the light telling everyone our idea. Everyone agreed.

That night, I didn't sleep well. Every time I felt like I was dreaming, something would stir in the forest and I would wake up. I wasn't very surprised when I woke up in the morning that I felt like I hadn't slept at all.

It was day 3, I think, of no food. Everyone was so dang hungry and just plain miserable. Nobody felt like doing anything. We leaned against various trees, and tried not to dwell on the fact we were starving.

Like yesterday, Thalia, Tyson, Annabeth and I were in a circle. This time, we were coming with ways to get food, some of them becoming weirder and weirder.

"Okay, so this is what we're going to do," Thalia began, "We are going to get on a plane. We're going to fly to London and beg Harry Potter for food. When we get it, we'll get on another plane, fly back here, and split up food between us." The sad thing was, she was dead serious. I think our minds were suffering from nutrition deprivation or something.

"One problem," I said, "I can't fly."

"You can swim." Actually, that's a possibility.

"I think we should go back to Aunty Em's." I said. I was kidding, but Annabeth shivered.

"What is Aunty Em's?" Tyson asked.

"You don't want to know," I told him.

"Well, how about this," Annabeth started, "We all go into the nearest fast-food restaurant we find in groups of five. We'll get it to go, and bring it back here."

We all looked at her.

"That's a good idea," Thalia said.

"Yeah, nice one, Wise Girl," I said. Annabeth blushed. For what seemed like the billionth time, we passed on the news. Everyone decided Annabeth should be in the first group, because it was her idea. She picked Thalia, Tyson, and I to go with her. We decided to keep our group down to four, because the less half-bloods, the less likely we are to be attacked by some kind of monster.

We dug our mortal money out of our backpacks, then we started heading for the edge of the lake. We skirted along the edge for about ten minutes, when we came to a small town. Thank goodness, the first thing we saw was McDonald's.

"Thank the gods," I heard Thalia mutter. We all but ran in, and, thank the gods, there was no one in line. When we ordered, we spoke so fast we each had to repeat our order twice.

It seemed to take forever for them to cook the food. When they gave it to us, we pretty much ripped it from their hands and ran back to the camp.

We sat down and inhaled our food (not literally). It had been way too long since we had eaten. We didn't even notice when other groups started leaving to go get their food.

After we ate, we just sat for a while, comfortably full. We talked a little, but it was about random stuff.

"So, what do you guys want to do?" Thalia said.

"I don't know, what do you want to do?" I said.

"Oh, no, we are not getting into that trap again." Annabeth said.

"Seriously, though, I'm going to explode if we sit here much longer," I said.

"Swimming!" Tyson said.

"Okay," I said.

"Fine."

"Sure."

We walked over to the edge of the lake. Tyson and I jumped in without hesitation, but the others walked in cautiously. Thalia especially was being extra careful.

Annabeth's POV

Of course Percy and Tyson would want to go swimming. Typical sons of Poseidon. Still, the idea sounded pretty good. It was hot outside, but dry.

Tyson and Percy jumped in, Tyson jumping off a rock, falling into the lake in a cannonball position, and created a huge wave about eight feet high.

I waded in until the water was about up to my stomach. I stood there in the shallows for a while, with Thalia behind me. She was cautious with water.

"Annabeth, Thalia, don't just stand there." Percy yelled.

I opened my mouth when a wave about five feet high crashed into Thalia and I. I spluttered, probably modeling the very attractive drowned rat look.

"OH, YOU ARE SO DEAD, SEAWEED BRAIN!!!" I yelled, launching myself into the deeper water. Thalia was right behind me, yelling something I couldn't understand.

Percy grinned and dived straight down. I ducked my head under, but he was fast underwater. He shot down like a bullet. Soon I couldn't see him.

I surfaced. "Lost him," I told Thalia. She muttered something about a stupid son of Poseidon when Percy's head broke the surface.

I smacked him on the head but he didn't seem to notice. Thalia splashed water in his face. I really don't know what she expected that to do, but he didn't even try to stop her.

"You guys have got to see this," he said. He dove under again. I shrugged at Thalia and stuck my head under again. Percy was floating about ten feet below me. He closed his eyes like he was concentrating, and we were surrounded by a gigantic air bubble, even bigger than the one he had created at the bottom of the Siren Bay. Tyson and Thalia were in it as well as. "This is incredible."

Our bubble started moving down. Once we were down about twenty feet, it started moving toward the shore.

Suddenly, there was a huge space in front of us. An underwater tunnel. It was basically a huge hole in that looked like a monster's mouth, stretched open in a yawn.

"Whoa." I said.

Percy nodded. "I know." Our bubble started moving up. It popped once we got to the surface. We swam to shore. Thalia and I were dripping wet, but the water slipped off of Percy and Tyson and they were completely dry. The sun was starting to go down. We'd been underwater for a while.

I started to shiver, and my teeth were chattering. I looked over and saw Thalia looked pretty cold as well.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and the water melted off. I was instantly warmer. I looked over my shoulder. Percy took his hand off my shoulder and did the same for Thalia.

"Thanks, Seaweed Brain," I said.

"No problem."

"So what was that?"

"Some kind of underwater tunnel. I don't know why, but I think it could be useful."

"You might be right." I sighed. Just another thing to add on to the list of random mysterious stuff. "We should probably get some sleep."

"Yep." With that, we went back to our camp.

Max's POV

Day 2 of having no clue what we're doing. Okay, we usually don't have any clue of what we're doing, but I'm talking about this particular time. I kept asking the Voice where the heck we're supposed to be going, but no answer. Big shocker.

We were just chilling in a tree. We don't get a lot of time to just hang around. It was really quiet. I mean, dead silent. Nothing. No birds, no wind, nothing. So when the Voice talked to me again, I almost fell out of the tree. I also made a very girly squeaky sound which I'm sure Fang will torture me for the rest of my life about.

_Max. Go to Forks, Washington._ Finally! Some straight answers.

_Got it._

"Alright, guys. Up and away! Finally got our coordinates." Within about thirty seconds, we were all headed west.

"So, where are we going?" Fang asked.

"Forks, Washington," I said.

"Any clue why?"

"To help some people save the world." You know, what we're always doing.

AN: Thanks to BraveMustang for the underwater tunnel suggestion. Hey, I warned you about the randomness. I, personally, would love to see Thalia begging Harry Potter for food. . .


	7. And I thought it couldn't be stranger

AN: I OWN NOTHING!!!! Dang writer's block. It took me two hours to write one sentence the other day. VERY hard to write this chapter, so I might end up redoing it. POVs switch a lot. But, finally, they meet THE CULLENS!! YAY!!

Thalia's POV

We were currently flying over Mt. Rainier. Nice mountain, if you don't have a problem with looking _down_ at it. Really, this trip was what it would be like if I ever ended up in the Fields of Punishment. I was hugging my Pegasus' neck so hard my arms had started to ache. At least Thunder didn't mind me practically choking him to death.

About thirty minutes later, the Pegasus in front of me started to angle downwards. Thank. The. Gods.

I noticed Percy start to peel off from the rest of the group, probably to go meet Chiron at the airport. He waved at us, and then Blackjack put on a burst of speed and they were gone. I saw Annabeth halfheartedly wave back, then put her head on her Pegasus' neck. Oh, she is so in denial.

As we got closer to the ground, I could see a small town come into view. Not very far away, there was a large house in the middle of a forest. There seemed to be a fair sized clearing around it. We were headed straight for it.

Our Pegasi landed with a cacophonous stampeding sound. We all slid off and looked at our surroundings. There was a very green forest surrounding us and the house. That's when all Hades broke loose.

From out of the house, six people came running. Well, running isn't really the right word. It was more like they flew.

From out of the forest, two others came. They stood next to the others who had stopped quiet gracefully. I wondered what in the world they thought of the eighty or so kids who landed in their backyard on a hundred or so flying horses. I stopped wondering when I looked at their faces.

They were beautiful. Amazingly beautiful. They also had pale skin, so pale it looked white. This, put together with their speed, made me sure that they were absolutely _not_ human.

There all stood in pairs, as if they were couples. There was one guy who had blond hair they same color as his weird golden eyes. There was another one with bronzy colored hair standing next to a girl with dark brown hair. The one with the bronze hair had his arm around the girl, in a kind of protective way.

I was trying to remember any kind of myth that involved pale skin and unbelievable speed. The only one I could remember were _empousai_, and I'd never heard of male _empousai._

Annabeth's POV

We finally get to meet the _people_ Chiron sent us to meet. I didn't have to be a daughter of Athena to know they were definitely _not_ human. I really didn't think they were Greek either. They might be _empousai, _but I don't think male _empousai_ exist. Nor would they stand there instead of attacking us.

If they weren't _empousai,_ what were they?

I was trying to figure out a tactful way to say _what in the world are you_ when the girl with dark hair and the one with bronze colored hair stepped forward.

"Guys, I think we're creeping them out," she said. Her voice was amazing, but that was when Clarisse did one of the stupidest things she's ever done.

She ran forward with her celestial bronze spear lowered at one of the ones behind the pair that stepped forward. The girl she was running toward had wavy blond hair and was standing next to a guy with muscles that were, well, I don't know how to describe him. If he said he could pick up a car, I wouldn't have doubted it for a second.

Anyway, Clarisse was running at the girl like she was going to cut her up into tiny pieces. This was not going to end well.

When she was about five feet away, the huge guy grabbed her spear, with her still hanging on to it.

"How ya doing?" He leaned down so that his face was in hers. He was grinning from ear to ear.

Clarisse has kind of become a friend over the past year or so, but I had to admit it was hilarious. Her face was horrified.

The people were trying really hard not to laugh. The rest of Camp Half-Blood looked about ready to attack.

The huge guy set Clarisse down carefully, and she walked back to us. I have to give her credit; she still held her head up. She walked over to where Chris Rodriguez was standing.

"Emmet!" one of the others with short black hair said, "you didn't have to scare her!"

"Sorry," he said to Clarisse, still grinning. Clarisse looked like she was going to pass out. I don't blame her.

"What – I mean, who, are you? Do you know Chiron?" I said.

An older man with light blond hair stepped forward.

"We are the Cullens. This is Alice and Jasper, Rosalie and Emmet, Bella and Edward, and Esme and I. We are a coven of –"

"Vampires!" the one called Emmet shouted out. Okay, that's different.

Needless to say, the campers were a bit shocked. You'd think that after a couple years of dealing with things and monsters mortals would consider impossible we'd be used to this kind of stuff.

"O-_kay_," I heard someone from my cabin say.

"Well, I'm Annabeth. And this is pretty much all of Camp Half-Blood, not including the satyrs and dryads. Oh, and Percy. He went to go meet Chiron at the airport. He should be back soon."

All of the Cullens exchanged glances. It was like they rehearsed it.

"Um, did you say meet Chiron at the airport?"

"Yes," I said, my eyebrows coming together, "Why? Do you know something?"

"Maybe you better come in." I raised my eyebrows. I looked over my shoulder at the other campers. Their house was big, but not that big.

"Just bring a couple people in. Everyone else can do whatever they want."

I walked back over to the other campers. The other leaders of the cabins walked over to me.

"I say we hear what they have to say, and everyone else can pitch the tents. I think we may be here a while." I said. The other leaders agreed. We gave out orders and the various parts of the tents were brought out of random saddlebags in which they had been packed during our week or so journey across the country.

As we walked into their huge house, I wondered if this was some kind of trap. Had it really been smart to give them that much information?

"Don't worry," the bronze haired one they called Edward said, "It's not a trap."

How in the world did he know I thought it was a trap?

"I can read minds." I'm pretty sure my jaw dropped.

"Edward, you're freaking her out," the girl named Bella said.

"Sorry," he said, "but it's true, and you would have figured it out anyway."

We all crowded around a long dining table. The one with black hair called Alice put out more chairs, so that we could all sit down. We were really squished. I was smushed between Beckendorf and Castor.

"What do you know about Chiron?" I said.

"Chiron Iris-Messaged me."

"How is that possible?"

"Well, we're not exactly what you would call mortals."

"True. What did he say?"

"He said your camp was being attacked, that he was sending all of you guys over here, across the nation, and that was all I got out of him because he said he was about to be captured."

Thalia's POV

Crud.


	8. Why Can't It Be Easy For Once?

AN: I OWN NOTHING, BUT I AM SO SICK OF HAVING TO PUT IN THESE STINKING DISCLAIMERS!!!! Yeah. That pretty much says it all. Oh, except that this does have Maximum Ride in it, so if you haven't read that it might not make much sense. Sorry! Oh, and (dang, I keep forgetting everything) POVs may switch a lot, but I had a lot to cover in this chapter.

Bella's POV

I've gotten used to random things happening at the Cullen household. You hang out with vampires, or you are one, you realize we attract weird things like magnets. Even I have to admit, though, this takes the cake. Out of nowhere, over a hundred flying horse, yeah, _flying horses,_ land on our lawn. Kids, varying in ages from six to eighteen-ish, were riding them.

I found out they were actually demigods, or half-bloods. Imagine being half Greek god. Weird. Annabeth was like the spoke person for the whole camp. I wondered why her, because other people looked older, but I didn't understand much about these people.

We had just gotten through explaining to them. They took the news about us being vampires pretty well, no screaming; they were just kind of shocked. They were pretty devastated when we told them about Chiron. I could understand that, at least.

We were sitting in the living room, talking about the strange kids.

"Something's bothering Annabeth," Jasper said. "Edward, do you what?"

"No, whatever it was, she wasn't thinking it before Bella blocked them from me." He glanced at me.

"I didn't think they wanted you in their heads, at least not the first time you meet them," I said. "Why were you so open with her about your mind reading?"

"She's a daughter of Athena. She would have figured it out very quickly. I probably told her about a minute before she would have figured it out."

"What are they going to do now?" I asked Alice.

She frowned. "I don't know."

Did Alice just say she doesn't know? Whoa.

"I can only see what I am, or have been. I can't see them, just like I can't see Jacob or Renesmee. I've never been a demigod."

"So, basically, they could all be plotting to attack us, and we wouldn't have any foreknowledge?" Rosalie said.

"Aside from Edward? Nope. But using common knowledge, I don't think they would. They just left the only safe place they have. They aren't going to go attack the first thing that they come across."

"Unless it attacks them first."

Percy's POV

You'd think this would be the easiest thing in the world. I would just walk into the airport, find Chiron, and get out of there. _Yeah, right._

First, I had to hide Blackjack. For some reason Pegasi aren't allowed into airports. Go figure. Then I have to get lost in the terminals, which for some reason, there was a lot of for a relatively small airport, and take the rest of the day finding the one Chiron supposed to be on. Keyword: _supposed._

I figured, okay, one of his "stops" he'd had to make before he could catch a plane ran late. So I went outside, found Blackjack, and fell asleep out in the forest.

The next day I was glad to find a monster hadn't eaten me during the night, which probably would have made meeting up with Chiron kind of hard.

"Bye, Blackjack, I've got to go find Chiron." I told Blackjack, who nodded and whinnied.

_Careful, Boss._ I'd pretty much given up on him ever not calling me "boss". It could be worse.

I walked into the airport, this time actually knowing where to go, which was nice, and found the terminal full of people. Great.

I went looking around the airport. There were a lot of people greeting old friends, people greeting relatives, but no Chiron. I looked harder. I must have circled the place ten times before giving up.

I walked out of the airport. I found a stream nearby and controlled the water to make a rainbow. I tossed a drachma in.

"O goddess, accept my offering," I said. "Annabeth Chase."

Annabeth's POV

After our "meeting" with the Cullens, I went back outside. On the lawn, exactly like in Camp Half-Blood and on Olympus, there were twelve tents. They looked almost exactly like the cabins. The Athena tent was silvery, just like our cabin back at camp.

Tyson and Thalia had managed to get their tents up by themselves. Thalia had put both Zeus's and Artemis's tents up, since she said the Hunters would probably join them soon once they realized what happened to camp.

I walked into the Athena tent to see cot/bunk beds lining the walls. It made me think back to camp, which made me pretty sad. I didn't know if I would ever see that place again.

My half-siblings waited for me to speak.

"They're telling the truth," I said, "They are vampires. They only drink animal blood, so we are in no danger. Well, from them, at least. I also have some bad news." My cabin mates looked at me as if to say, _more?_

"We believe Chiron has been captured." I couldn't go on. My cabin mates all started asking me questions at once. "That's all I know. We probably have a long day tomorrow. Let's get some sleep."

We all picked the beds that would have been ours anyway, if we had been back in the Athena cabin at camp. I guess we just wanted to have something normal.

I couldn't sleep. I kept thinking I was forgetting something. I tossed and turned for the half the night, trying to remember what I'd forgot.

It hit me pretty suddenly: Percy. He was supposed to be back by now. Where could he be? Then again, he probably stayed at the airport, waiting for Chiron. But what if something attacked him? I argued with myself, saying that Percy could take care of himself. Yeah, I was arguing with myself. I'm pretty humiliated to say that I lost.

I stayed up the rest of the night worrying. The next morning I didn't even recognize myself. My hair was a rat's nest, and I had dark, black circles under my eyes. Too bad.

I pulled my hair back into a ponytail, and left the rest alone. I walked outside. It was starting to rain. Just what we need.

It looked so much like camp that I almost forgot we were in Washington, not New York. Somebody had set up targets for the archery range, probably the Apollo cabin, and there was now a tent that resembled what I imagined was serving as the Big House. They probably needed somewhere to put the Oracle. Someone had set up dummies for sword practice as well.

I decided to go for a walk. I went to the edges of camp, and found a log to sit on. I just sat there for a while, thinking about random stuff, and determinedly not thinking about one particular thing, or person. After a while Thalia sat beside me.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey, what are you doing out here?"

"Nothing."

She rolled her eyes. "Seriously. How about this: what are you thinking?"

"Stuff."

"Annabeth, that's the worst answer I've ever gotten from a child of Athena. What's wrong?"

"I'm worried."

"Aren't we all? But you're worried about Percy, right?" I nodded. "Annabeth, he's probably fine."

"Thalia, you know from experience. 'Probably' doesn't do much when he's a child of the Big Three."

"Okay, so you might have a point. But not right now, because he's behind you in an Iris-message."

"_What?!_" I half shrieked. I got to my feet and whipped around. Sure enough, he was standing there, and a really confused expression was on his face. "How long have you been there, Seaweed Brain?"

"Hello to you, too. I only heard Thalia say something about a point and an Iris-Message."

"Oh. So about five seconds, then. Where are you?"

"In the woods by the airport. Listen, I don't know why, but Chiron is not here."

"We already know," Thalia said. "The Cullens told us he'd been captured."

"Who are the Cullens and how in the world do they know where Chiron is? They don't work for Kronos, do they?" He started talking really fast.

"No, nothing like that. However, Chiron wasn't kidding when he said they were strange. He sent an Iris Message here before he was captured." I explained.

He nodded. "Where are you?"

"We're about five or ten minutes away. There's a huge in a clearing with a really windy driveway, and there's a bunch of tents set up in the backyard," Thalia answered.

"Okay. I should be there in about five or ten minutes, depending on how fast Blackjack flys." I heard a whinny that almost sounded offended. "See you soon." He waved a hand through the Iris message, and he was gone.

Thalia and I walked back to the house in silence.

The one they called Jasper let us in. The rest of the Cullens were sitting around the dining table. They all looked up as we came in.

"I'm assuming you two have news?" Carlisle said. He reminded me of Chiron. That thought made me sad. Who knows what happened to him?

"Yes. Percy just Iris Messaged me. He should be here soon," I said.

"Good. Thank you for informing us." We left. It was short, but what else could we say?

I sat outside the Athena tent, and waited.

Percy's POV

After I was done talking with Annabeth and Thalia, I pulled myself onto Blackjack.

_Where to, Boss? _he said.

"East," I said.

He gave himself a running start. He pushed himself into a gallop before propelling himself into the sky. When I try to do something, even something as simple as getting from point A to point B, it's a cue for something bad to arrive, challenge me, exist, or explode. I'm getting really sick of it.

On cue, I hear large wings beating the air. I also smelled something I remembered from last summer: poison.

I don't even bother to look back. I just tried to put as much space between me and what was following me.


	9. Whoa

AN: HOW MANY MORE TIMES DO I HAVE TO SAY THIS?! I DO NOT OWN PJO, TWILIGHT, OR MAXIMUM RIDE!! SERIOUSLY PEOPLE!!! This chapter moves kind of quickly. Ok, so it moves insanely fast. Whatever. This was another hard chapter to write.

Max's POV

I was doing some scouting, just flying above the forest, about two miles from Lake Superior. I decided to come alone. I love my Flock to pieces, but sometimes it's nice to just be alone. Up in the air, the only other things around me were birds.

Or so I thought.

"GET OUT OF THE WAY!! MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!!"

One second I'm gliding, the next I'm looking at the weirdest thing I've ever seen in my entire life (and that's saying something!).

A teenage guy, maybe a little older than me, was riding toward me at a scary fast speed on a pure black, get this, _flying horse_. Whoa. I thought maybe Iggy had put something in my water bottle or something. That's when I saw what was behind him.

A huge, weird dragon thing was chasing after him. It had the body of a woman from the waist up, and the woman snakes for hair. Snakes were also hanging from the dragon-like legs, hissing. Her stomach also looked like it was bubbling, if bubbles were animal-shaped. She was carrying two swords, which were giving off a weird greenish colored fog.

I made a split second decision and dived straight down, dropping about thirty feet in the blink of an eye before leveling out. The shot over me like bullets, and I chased after them, which was not the smartest thing I've ever done.

I used my ability to fly at over two hundred miles per hour to catch up to them. I nearly shot past them, but managed to keep pace with the guy on the flying horse.

He looked at me furiously. He had black hair, and his eyes were green and fuming.

"What do you think you're doing?!" He yelled. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"

"Are you?!" I yelled.

"I'm used to this kind of stuff!" The Pegasus (Well, that's what flying horses are called, right?) dove straight down into the trees. I saw his plan and immediately followed.

Normally, I wouldn't notice, but that Pegasus was an amazing flyer. I would have thought it would be clumsy, because it's just weird for me to imagine horses with wings, (Ha! This is coming from the avian-human hybrid.), but it zoomed through the trees, sometimes turning completely sideways, just like I was. The kid stuck to the Pegasus like glue, bent low over the neck, always looking forward.

Finally, we burst out of the trees out onto the shore of Lake Superior. The freaky dragon lady was nowhere to be seen.

The guy jumped off the Pegasus, and seemed to be talking to it. I stalked over to him and started firing off random questions.

"What the heck was that?! Who are you? Why do you have a flying horse?"

"I don't have time to answer questions! You can go on and do whatever it is you want, she won't come after you, you're mortal. I have to get out of here." He started walking over to the lake.

"What do you mean, I'm mortal? Of course I am! Wait, where are you going?" I ran after him.

"I have to get out of here," he repeated. "She'll come back for me. She doesn't give up easily." Then he went and literally jumped into the lake. I ran over and flung my wings out. I streaked over the lake, but I couldn't see him anymore.

The black Pegasus launched himself into the air and headed west. I shook my head, trying to clear it, and headed for the shore when my favorite people in the entire world flew out from the trees.

Fang was leading Iggy, the Gasman, Angel, and Nudge onto the shore. They landed softly on the sand and I streaked over to them and came to a sliding stop.

"What was _that_?" Nudge said. I shook my head.

"I have absolutely no idea."

Percy's POV

I sped through the water like a bullet until I was in front of the tunnel I had found earlier. I willed the water to push me forward until I was flying through the water.

I thought about the weird flying girl that had followed me. I've seen some weird things, and that's up there at the top of the list.

The tunnel I was in branched off a couple of times, but I ignored them. I knew I had to stay in this tunnel, heading forward. I don't know how, I just. . . could.

I kept moving forward. After about two hours (I just love the whole not needing to come up for air thing) I finally burst out into the ocean. Instantly I felt perfect, like I hadn't just crossed half the country underwater in two hours. I swam up to the surface, and looked toward land. I knew I was about five miles away from the coast of Washington.

I made the waves push me to shore. I walked out onto the shore, thankful that there was no one there. I didn't want to explain why I walked out of the ocean completely dry.

I turned back to the ocean and made a rainbow out of the waves. It wouldn't have the greatest connection, but it would be good enough. I searched my pockets for a drachma only to come up empty. I cursed. I thought I had a few, but they must have fallen out, or. . . they were in my bag, with Tyson. Great.

I stopped the rainbow and turned to the forest. I better start walking.

Annabeth's POV

For the second time in two days, I was wondering where the heck that Seaweed Brain is now. He said he be here in ten minutes at most. That was an hour ago. Now I'm sitting outside the Athena tent, fuming.

For some reason, random stuff seems to happen to me. Like, Blackjack and six kids with wings landing in front of me.

One had streaked hair and was the tallest girl. She tucked in her wings fast, as if she wanted to keep them a secret. There was two older guys, one very dark haired, wearing all black, with dark wings, and another who kept tilting his head as if trying to hear everything better. He seemed slightly overwhelmed. The older tapped his hand twice and whispered something. There were also three others. Two who looked younger and might be brother and sister, and one who had dark skin. They all looked suspicious and jumpy.

I thought that I had fallen asleep and was dreaming. Usually, though, in my dreams, other campers don't start running over to see what the commotion is all about.

The vampires beat me to them first. They started firing off the important questions: who are you, what are you, why are you here, you know, the usual. They didn't seem to be answering any questions, saying vague things that didn't give us any information at all. Instead, they started asking us questions.

"Why don't you ask us questions, then we'll ask you? You can always fly away if you feel threatened, it's not like we're going to capture you or anything," Alice said. They looked kind of shocked when she mentioned being captured, like it was a real fear to them, but the girl in front nodded. I could almost read her mind.

The youngest one, a girl about six, maybe, came forward. "I want to know why I'm getting my own thoughts sent back to me," she said, calmly and clearly. I looked over at Edward. He was looking really confused, until something occurred to him.

"You can read minds, too, can't you?" he said. The little girl just smiled and nodded. I heard what the dark boy said to the older girl.

"Great, now we have two mind controlling freaks to worry about."

"Actually, I can only hear people's thoughts, not control them."

"Oh, good," I heard the one that looked like he could be the youngest's brother. They had the same blond hair.

"Okay, so I'm Max," the oldest girl named Max said, "and this is Fang, Iggy, the Gasman, Nudge, and Angel." Okay, those aren't strange names at all. "We're human-avian hybrids." Okay, I have to admit, that would shock most people.

"Wait," I said. I walked forward. "Why is Blackjack following you?" I pointed toward the pure black Pegasus. "Where's Percy?"

"I have absolutely no idea why he's following us," Max began.

"Where's Percy?" I repeated.

"Black hair, green eyes?"

"Yes." I was starting to get really freaked out.

"We saw him hauling butt east-,"

I put my hands to my temples. "I am going to kill him," I announced.

"-being chased by some freaky dragon lady thing," she finished.

"What did it look like?" Although I had a pretty good idea.

She gave me a perfect description of Kampe.


	10. I get to know the freaks

AN: PEOPLE, I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING!!!

Max's POV

"Trust Seaweed Brain to find one of the worst monsters in all of Tartarus." Annabeth said. We were sitting inside the Cullen's house, scarfing down some lunch that Iggy, Edward, and Bella had made. I never knew vampires could cook. That's right, vampires. Now we've thrown in demigods. What's next?

"What do you mean?" I asked. Despite the fact that I'd known her for all of twenty minutes, Annabeth and I were getting along great. Which is rare, because I can count the number of people I'm on good terms with, including my Flock, without having to use my toes.

"Well, Percy probably has the worst luck of anyone I've ever met. Well, him and Thalia."

"Talking about me?" a girl with black hair said as she walked in. She had shocking blue eyes.

"Just how you and Percy seem to have the worst luck in the world."

"Well, what about you? You have to become best friends with the two of the only three surviving half-blood children of the Big Three, one of which is probably the subject of-"

"Thalia!" Annabeth cautioned, looking at me.

"What? The subject of what?" I said.

"We're not allowed to tell you," Annabeth said. "I'm sorry."

"Why not?" I demanded. One of the things I hate most in the world is not knowing something.

"The gods don't want us to."

"So, anyway, Lady Artemis and the other hunters should be here in a week. They're following something big, and Lady Artemis doesn't want to lose the trail." Thalia said.

"Who's Lady Artemis?"

"Do you know anything about the Greek gods at all?"

"No. I spent the first few years of my life in a dog crate, and the rest of it hiding from people, if you can call them that, who wanted to put me back into said dog crate."

"Lady Artemis is the goddess of the hunt."

"How do you know her, then?"

Her eyes narrowed at me. "I am her lieutenant," she hissed at me, then walked out the door.

"Don't worry," Annabeth said, "you can make Thalia or Percy mad, just don't make them mad at the same time. And whatever you do, don't make them mad at each other, if you want the planet to exist beyond tomorrow."

I laughed, but she sounded dead serious. "Why don't I want them mad at each other?"

"Let's just say that the last time children of the Big Three got into a fight, World War II happened."

"Wait, that was caused by half-bloods? What are the Big Three, anyway?"

"The Big Three are the three sons of Kronos: Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. World War II was caused by the children of Zeus and Poseidon fighting the children of Hades. That's just one example."

"But that was with all three. If Percy and Thalia are the only ones here, and Percy isn't even here."

"Well, we actually know a child of Hades, and I don't even want to think about how ugly that could get." And I thought my life was weird.

"So, what are doing here, anyway?" I asked.

Her eyes got really sad. "Chiron told us to come here. The Titans captured our camp."

"Who are the Titans?"

"They are against Olympus. Their leader is Kronos." She changed the subject abruptly. "What happened to Percy?"

"After that. . . what did you call it?" "Kampe" "Yeah, Kampe, stopped following us, he landed, got off the Pegasus, and jumped into a lake. He didn't come up for a while, so I had assumed he drowned. There was nothing I could do." I noticed Annabeth cracking up. "What?"

"It's just the thought of Percy drowning," she said, in between laughs.

"Okay, most people don't laugh at the thought of their boyfriend drowning."

That sobered her up. "He's not my boyfriend. He's just a friend."

I raised my eyebrow. "Sure, that's what they all say." She rolled her eyes.

"So, what about you and Fang, huh?" she said.

I blushed. "What do you mean? There is no Fang and I."

"That blush says otherwise." Dang!

"Is it that obvious?"

"Yes."

"Just like how I know you and Percy should be together, and haven't even seen you two at the same time yet?"

"I'm going for a walk." She stalked outside. I followed her, but sat down on the porch. I watched the other demigods go about their business, which looked pretty strange to me, when I noticed someone standing behind Annabeth.

The figure was standing funny, like one of his legs hurt or something. He reached out, and put a hand on her shoulder. Annabeth jumped a foot in the air, whirled around, and tackled him to the ground.

I ran over to see if she needed any help. Apparently not, because she had a knife at his throat and had him pinned to the ground. Note to self: Never startle Annabeth.

"Gods, Annabeth, do you always have to attack me?" Surprisingly, Annabeth got off of him, and pulled him to his feet. Then she hugged him. What kind of planet do we live on, anyway? Annabeth attacks a guy, lets him go, then hugs him?

He looked at me. "What are _you_ doing here?" That's when I recognized him. He was the guy who had been running from Kampe.

"Taking a vacation." He rolled his eyes. "Who are you, anyway?"

"Percy Jackson. Who are _you_?"

"Maximum, or Max, Ride."

Annabeth looked towards Percy. "Percy, you need to sit down. You're hurt."

He shrugged. "It's nothing. I just twisted my ankle." Sure. He was having trouble not falling over.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Right, it's nothing. That's why you're about to fall over. Give it up, Seaweed Brain."

"Nope," he said, "I'll go jump in the river."

Annabeth sighed and rolled her eyes. Muttering something about a stubborn Seaweed Brain, she helped him over to the wide river. She pushed him in.

He stayed under for about five seconds, then a huge wave of water propelled him out, perfectly dry. He walked over to us without as much as a limp.

"You guys are freaks," I said.

"Get used to it."

AN: Definitely one of my favorite chapters to write.


	11. You In?

AN: PEOPLE, IF YOU DON'T KNOW THAT I DON'T OWN ANYTHING BY NOW, THAN YOU PROBABLY CAN'T READ SO WOULDN'T EVEN BE ABLE TO GET ON FANFICTION SINCE THAT REQUIRES BEING ABLE TYPE, WHICH IS REALLY HARD TO DO IF YOU CAN'T READ OR WRITE!!!!!

Percy's POV

We were all standing in the Cullen's kitchen. All of the Cullen's were there, as well as the Flock. The leaders of the cabins were there, too. Annabeth was explaining to me what happened while I'd been gone. She told me more about how Chiron was missing, showed me the tents which looked so much like the cabins back at camp that I felt homesick, and I said hello to Tyson, who nearly strangled me in a huge hug.

"We need a quest to find Chiron," she said.

"I know," I said, "but who's going to lead it?"

"You."

"Great. You know, because I just love speaking to the Oracle. She is just my favorite person on the planet, and I love her prophecies. They always turn out so fun for me."

Annabeth snorted. "No, because you're the only camper here who has been on a rescue mission to Mt. Tam."

"You think that's where Chiron is?"

"Well, name one other place the Titans would take their prisoners."

"Wait, what's Mt. Tam?" Max asked.

"Mt. Tamalpais. The Mountain of Despair. It's where Atlas holds up the sky. Also home to the Titans fortress, Mount Othrys," Annabeth said.

"Not to mention some pretty bad memories." Annabeth, Thalia and I shuddered.

"And you guys actually want to go there?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Count me in."

"Percy, I think you need to visit the Oracle. Again," Thalia said.

No one said a word as I walked outside. I walked over to the tent that was serving as the Big House, and walked inside. There was a curtain separating the tent into two. I pulled the curtain aside to see the Oracle, sitting on a makeshift stool.

I tried not to look at the shriveled mummy too much. Soon green mist poured out of her mouth, obscuring my view a little.

_I am the spirit of Delphi, speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python, _the all-too-familiar voice said, _Approach, seeker, and ask._

I swallowed and said, "What is my destiny?"

The mist swirled. I saw a vision of Mount Tam from the viewpoint of Alcatraz Island, exactly the way it had looked when Annabeth, Grover, Tyson and I had seen it last summer. I wondered if it still looked that way, or if this was just my memory.

_You will return to where the Titan pays for his crime,_

_Rescuing what has been captured by the Lord of Time._

_Worlds will collide with tremendous force,_

_And for two it will be a familiar course._

_Not all of the answers for the questions you seek will be found,_

_And by the choices of all the worlds will be bound._

The green mist returned to the hippy mummy, and I walked back to the house, trying not to shake.

Max's POV

Percy walked in and sat down, saying nothing. He looked like he was going to be sick.

"Percy, what the heck happened? You like you've seen a ghost," Annabeth asked, concerned.

"It wasn't a ghost. Nico isn't here." I hoped I wasn't supposed to understand that, because I didn't. "I hate prophecies. Visiting the Oracle just isn't one of those things that gets better with time."

"I agree," she said. "But what did this one say?"

_"You will return to where the Titan pays for his crime,_

_Rescuing what has been captured by the Lord of Time._

_Worlds will collide with tremendous force,_

_And for two it will be a familiar course._

_Not all of the answers for the questions you seek will be found,_

_And by the choices of all the worlds will be bound."_

"Well, at least this time it didn't say someone would die," Thalia said. "That's definitely an improvement on the prophecy last time we went to Mt. Tam."

"Actually, Annabeth and I were there last summer as well."

"Oh, yeah, when you found out about Luke. . . Anyway, who should go?" Thalia asked, looking at Percy.

"Well, I think the part about 'worlds collide' was pretty obvious. At least one vampire and one of the Flock will come," Percy said.

"If one of the Flock goes, we all go," I said, crossing my arms over my chest. I saw the rest of the Flock nod out of the corner of my eye.

"Okay. What about from the Cullens?" All the Cullens looked at Carlisle.

"Does anyone want to go?" he said.

"We'll go!" Alice said, motioning to her and Jasper.

"I don't think that's a good idea. We'll need to know if one of our kind decides to pay us a visit, especially with some of us gone," Carlisle said. Alice looked disappointed, but nodded.

"How about us?" Bella said. "You can do without us for a bit, right?"

"I think that's a good idea," Carlisle said.

"Okay, so far we have the whole Flock as well as Bella and Edward. That makes eight."

That was when Total decided to make an appearance. He jumped into Angel's arms, his wings flapping a little bit.

"Nine," he said. Everyone turned to look at him.

"What?!" Percy said.

"You miscounted. There are seven members of the Flock that will be going. Add that to Bella and Edward and you have nine," he said with absolute conviction.

I raised an eyebrow. "What about Akila?"

"I'm not letting her come. It's too dangerous." I rolled my eyes.

"Well, then where is she going to stay?"

Bella looked at Total. "I have an idea. She can stay with my dad and Sue. They could use a dog." I saw Total bristle, but I shot him a warning glare and he didn't say anything.

"Okay, so nine. Which campers should come?" Annabeth asked.

"Well, there's myself, and then are you and Thalia in?"

"I'm good."

"You bet, but what about Tyson?" Annabeth asked.

Percy sighed. "I wish he could come, but I think he is needed to help the Hephaestus cabin get weapons ready." Annabeth nodded.

"Who's Tyson?"

"He's a Cyclops and my half-brother."

Fang's POV

Max has a new way to save the world. We're not going to be saving our world, we're going to be saving Olympus. Okay, could someone please explain to me how my life could get any weirder? On second thought, don't. I don't want to know.

I don't mind helping them though. Once you get past the fact that they're half Greek god, they're pretty cool. They told us we could see through Mist, whatever that is.

That was when a gigantic russet colored wolf stepped out of the forest.

I didn't think, I flew. The rest of the Flock surrounded me on every side. When I looked down, there was no wolf, just two extra people. What the heck? Was I finally snapping?

We all landed again. Max looked about ready to either fly away again, or punch somebody. I'm guessing the latter, personally. I thought she was going to attack it/him, but the Cullens interfered.

"Jake isn't a monster, he's a shape shifter," Bella had explained. "And the girl is my daughter, Renesmee." It was still weird, okay? We've spent most of lives running from people very similar to them.

Anyway, after that disastrous encounter, the demigods told us that we would need to practice with them. They said that although we could fight, that wouldn't do anything to a member of the Titan army. So today we get our first lesson in sword fighting. This is going to be interesting.

I walked over to where the rest of the Flock and several demigods were waiting.

"Ready?" One of them, Percy, asked me.

"Yep."

"Okay, Beckendorf is going to help you with and swords and stuff." Somebody helped me out on full Greek armor, which is some heavy stuff, but still light enough that I could probably fly in it, and helped me pick out a sword. I found one that seemed balanced.

"You're lucky. When I first came to camp, none of the swords worked for me. We usually have a bigger selection, but since we evacuated, we had to leave some stuff behind," Percy told me. I noticed he didn't have anything but a pen, which he just fished out of his pocket.

What, was he going to teach me Ancient Greek pen fighting?

"What's that?" I asked.

"Anaklusmos," he said. When I raised my eyebrows, he said, "It's Ancient Greek for Riptide."

"You name your pens?"

"It's not a pen."

"Dude, you need glasses or something. That's a pen."

"It's not _just_ a pen." He took the cap off. Instantly it transformed into an amazing glittering bronze sword.

"Whoa. Where did you get that?" Gasman said, staring at the blade.

"My dad. Well, technically Chiron, but my dad gave it to Chiron to give to me."

"Who's your dad?"

"Poseidon. Okay, so this is what you're going to do. . ." He showed us all kinds of stuff that might be useful, like how stop from getting killed, for example. After a while, Edward walked over.

"Emmet was wondering if you would like to take a break, and play some sort of game."

Everyone agreed.

"So what game do you guys want to play?"

Well, what game can demigods, avian-human hybrids, vampires, half-vampires, and shape shifters all play?

"DODGEBALL!!!"

AN: I really didn't think the prophecy was that cheesy, considering I'm probably the worst poet in the world. I'm not kidding, Apollo would probably have a heart attack if he heard any of my other poems. I know, I just kind of skipped over the whole wolf part, but I was really tired so I'll probably end up fixing that. While I was writing this, though, I found out my cat has horrible taste in music. He doesn't like Trace Adkins. Poor Mittens, he's missing out on good music. . .


	12. Dodge ball, no more needs to be said

AN: PEOPLE, HOW MANY MORE TIMES DO I NEED TO SAY THIS?! I DO NOT OWN MR, TWILIGHT, OR PJO!!!

Percy's POV

There are several different types of dodge ball. There's elementary school dodge ball, where people basically throw balls around and you could walk away before they hit you. Next there's nation ball, which is usually junior high to high school level. It can get dangerous, lots of bruises, and maybe broken bones, but only if you're clumsy and trip over something or someone.

Then there's Camp Half-Blood dodge ball.

When campers say they're going to play dodge ball, it basically means we're going to split up into teams and through stuff at each other, as hard as we can. Anything and everything is fair game. I've seen people throw rocks, javelins, and I've even seen some people throw spears. Basically, it is one of the most fierce, violent, deadly, and fun games you will ever hopefully not have to see.

This time, we had the campers on one side, with the Cullens, both packs (they still creep me out) and the Flock on the other side. Hopefully we didn't have too many deaths. The Titan army was probably still following us, and we needed everyone we could get.

We didn't have much else we could do, though. Thalia needed Lady Artemis's permission to go on the quest, and until then, we might as well enjoy ourselves a bit.

The river served as our boundary line. There was at least fifty feet on either side before we had to run into something, so we were pretty safe from destroying something.

"Ready?" I asked Annabeth. She had a pile of javelins at her feet.

"You bet." She noticed I wasn't holding anything. "What are you going to be using?"

I grinned. "You'll see."

Aphrodite's children stood on either side of the river.

"All right!" Silena yelled. Usually it was Chiron's job to announce the beginning of games, but since Chiron wasn't here, Silena got the job. "You may use any and everything! No intentional maiming or deaths! On the whistle!"

One of her siblings blew a whistle.

It immediately became chaos. Stuff was flying everywhere. I saw campers knocked off their feet. The Flock and the vampires had an advantage. If the packs wanted to stay in their wolf form, they were faster, but couldn't throw, so they had a slight disadvantage.

I noticed we were getting beat pretty badly, so I decided to start doing something besides dodging the baseballs Emmet was trying to kill me with.

I concentrated on bringing a small quantity of water to my palm. I made it into a sphere about a half a foot across. I brought my arm back and chucked it as hard as I could across the river. It flew across the makeshift courts and hit Alice in the back of the head.

Alice whipped around and glared at me. If you've never had a vampire glare at you, you are so lucky. She picked up a baseball and threw it at me faster than I could have believed possible. This is one of those times I like having ADHD. I was able to flatten myself to the ground, and it sailed over my head. Jasper pointed out to her that technically she was now out and she had to sit out the rest of the game. She walked off the field, looking resigned.

I tried again. This time I aimed up high and hit Fang. Max was laughing so hard at him as he flew off the field, she didn't realize that I was aiming a water ball at her until it hit her in the face.

By now most of the other team realized that I was slowly starting to destroy their team. That was when Thalia decided to help me.

However, as she started to pull out her spear, a single silver arrow pierced the ground at her feet. She froze, then bent over and picked up. She looked at the shaft, then grinned.

"What?" I said. The game had completely frozen, and everyone was staring at her.

"The hunters are early." She showed me the arrow and I realized there was writing written on it. I couldn't read it, not just because of my dyslexia, but because it wasn't written it in English or any form of Ancient Greek that I knew.

"I thought you said they wouldn't be here for a week!" Annabeth said.

"We found our prey weaker than we thought," said a familiar voice behind us, in the forest. We all spun around, except for Thalia, who just laughed.

Max's POV

"My lady," Thalia said to the twelve year old in front, "Your hunt was successful?"

"Of course, Thalia." I was trying to figure out why Thalia, who looked about fifteen or sixteen, was so respectful to a twelve year old, and how a bow was now slung over her shoulder. "I believe you need to speak with me?"

"Yes. A quest has been set up to rescue Chiron from Mt. Tam."

"You have my permission. The remaining Hunters and I will wait here for your return. I feel we will be needed."

"Tent Eight has been put up."

"Good." She turned around and the Hunters followed her to where the strange tents were set up. I released a little too late that must be the goddess of the Hunt, Artemis. Well, how many people expected the goddess of the Hunt to be a twelve year old? Huh? That's what I thought.

I noticed that everyone else was going back to the house. I motioned to the Flock and we followed them into the living room. Inside, the News was doing some kind of special report.

_"The original eruption was of course the strongest. However, the eruptions have been intensifying. It will probably only be a matter of time until we see another explosion equal to the one last summer,"_ some expert was saying. The camera went back to the newscaster.

_"Thank you Professor Kirk. Live from Mt. Saint Helens, Washington, this is Maria. Back to the studio."_

"You know, it's strange how suddenly it erupted. No warning, no earthquake, nothing," Carlisle said.

"I know. We had just moved here, and we almost had to move again," Bella was saying.

Percy and Annabeth were very carefully not looking at each other. I was wondering if they knew something when Edward and Angel spoke at the same time:

"You blew up Mt. Saint Helens?" they both said, speaking very slowly and looking at Percy. Percy and Annabeth were both very red, but I couldn't figure out why Annabeth would blush, it was obvious that Percy had caused the explosion, since Angel and Edward were both staring at him.

"It wasn't on purpose!" Percy said. How do you _accidently_ blow up a volcano? "I was about to be killed by dog-faced sea-lion people!"

Right, because that happens to me every day, too.

AN: Yes, Percy's description of the telekhines is from BOTL. I don't own that either. READ THE FIRST AUTHOR'S NOTE PEOPLE!!!!!


	13. Would You Rather?

AN: PEOPLE, I CANNOT BELIEVE I HAVE TO SAY THIS AGAIN! I DO NOT OWN PJO, MR, OR TWILIGHT! SHEESH!!!

Percy's POV

So, you know people for about a day, and some of the first things they learn about you is that you are part Greek god and that you blew up Mt. Saint Helens. But that wasn't what I was worried about.

_Do not tell them about the kiss, do not tell them about the kiss._ I was pretty sure Edward and Angel had already seen it, and I was hoping they were still listening.

Anyway, Annabeth and I were still slightly red, and Thalia had an evil look in her eye, which meant that Annabeth and/or I was going to be interrogated later. Everyone going on the quest, plus a few others, were in the Cullen's kitchen. We were going over some finer points in our plan, like what the heck we're supposed to be doing. The sun was starting to set, and we were leaving in the morning.

"Are we going to fly to San Francisco?" Max asked.

"I can't take a plane," I said.

"Why?" _Because my crazy uncle will blast the plane out of the sky, along with everyone on it._

"Zeus," I said, shrugging.

"What about a train?" Annabeth said.

"That would work," Thalia said.

"Okay, so train it is. How are we going to get onto Mt. Tam? You know they're going to keep Chiron at the top, at Mount Othrys," I said.

"Well, we can't get through the Labyrinth, obviously. Do you and Thalia remember how to get to the Garden of the Hesperides?"

"No, we had Zoe. I don't think we can get in again. The Mist is really strong up there," I said.

"What about Nereus?" Thalia said. "He would know, right? And he's usually by San Francisco."

"Probably," I said, "but I vote someone else jumps him this time. He smells worse than dead fish."

"Percy, none of the rest of us can breathe underwater."

"Well, technically we don't even need to breathe," Bella said.

I shook my head. "He wouldn't listen to you. He barely listened to me."

"Who is Nereus anyway?" Nudge asked.

"He's the Old Man of the Sea," I said. "Not a nice guy, but he knows a lot. The only problem is catching him."

"Okay. . . So we've agreed on going on a train to San Francisco, finding Nereus, and winging it from there," Annabeth summed it up.

"Wait," Total the talking dog said, "I haven't agreed yet." Everybody stared at him. "I agree." Everyone rolled their eyes.

"Try to sleep. Tomorrow we leave for San Francisco," I said. Everyone left. I went to the Poseidon tent, Thalia went to Tent Eight, and Annabeth went to the Athena tent. It looked like the Flock flew. . . into a tree? Okay, that's just weird.

Inside the tent, it was blue and green. There were cots instead of beds. Tyson was sitting on one that looked like it had been reinforced.

"I'm leaving tomorrow," I said. Tyson's face fell a bit, but he already knew.

"I will miss you," he said, sniffling a little bit.

"I'll miss you too, big guy. But you need to stay here – and make more swords and stuff." He nodded, looking a little resigned.

I climbed onto one of the cots, and, surprisingly, fell asleep immediately.

Annabeth's POV

The night before the quest, I didn't sleep well. I kept waking up, for some reason.

After I got dressed, I walked outside. Of course, it was pouring rain. I ran over to where Thalia, Edward, Bella, and the Flock were waiting, on the covered porch. Everyone except Edward and Bella were soaking wet. By the time I got to them, so was I.

"Where the Hades is Percy?" Thalia practically growled.

"I'm here," Percy said, panting slightly as he ran up the steps. I tried not to resent the fact that he was completely dry.

"Okay, unfortunately, the closest train station is in Port Angeles, so we have about a half an hour drive," Bella said. Everyone groaned. "We're going to have to split up into two cars, as well."

"We could just fly," Max said.

"It's starting to get pretty windy up there. I think it will just be safer to just take two cars," Edward said.

"Trust me, we've flown through worse. Not that long ago we had to fly through a hurricane. This is nothing."

"I think you should preserve your strength," I said. "You never know when something is going to pop up."

"Fine."

"Someone is still going to have to double up with someone," Bella pointed out.

"The Gasman and Angel," Max said, "They're the smallest."

"Hey!"

"Well, it's true."

"Are we going to leave or not?" Thalia said. We all walked over to the garage, which was a building of its own.

Inside were at least five cars. Edward got into a silver Volvo and Bella got into a black Mercedes. Thalia, Percy, and I got into the Volvo. Max shooed Nudge toward us as well. She seemed pretty desperate not to share a car with Nudge. Nudge got into the front seat.

The cars pulled out of the driveway and started down the sinuous driveway toward the main road.

The car accelerated. We must have been going over 100 miles per hour. I wondered why Edward didn't slow down, but I guessed it was a vampire thing, because Bella kept up with us.

The rain continued to hit the windows. The raindrops were so big that each one was like a hand slapping the window.

I looked at the window and zoned out for a while, which is pretty rare for me. It felt like I hadn't got any sleep last night, though, and it was easy to let my brain relax for once.

Before I knew it, we were pulling up in front of the train station. Unfortunately, we found out that the next train to San Francisco was another half an hour wait. The train ride itself was pretty long; we wouldn't get to San Francisco until tomorrow morning.

"Hey, Annabeth, do you have an apple?" Percy asked me.

"No, I should have thought to bring one though." By now everyone else was staring at us like we were insane. "There's a snack bar over there though."

"I'll be right back." He walked off. He was back fairly quickly, and he had a red, round apple in his hand. We started to play Hacky Sack with it.

"Okay, so you guys play Hacky Sack with an apple whenever you're on a quest to save the world," Max said.

"Yep," Percy said. "You end up waiting a lot on quests. Remember when we'd try to play and Grover ended up eating the apple?"

I laughed a little bit. "Wasn't that on our first quest?"

"Wait, so you guys have been on more than one quest?" The Gasman said.

Percy's eyes were following the apple, but he said, "Yeah. I think this is my, what, fifth?"

"Whoa," muttered Max.

"Guys, we can get on the train now," Bella said. Percy caught the apple, and put it into his backpack.

We walked onto the train, and sat down in some seats. There were only three in a row, and I sat in between Percy and Thalia.

The train started moving, and just in case, we weren't going to talk about our quest at all. Instead, I fished a deck of cards out of my backpack and we played every card game on the planet.

After five hours and way too many games of Go Fish later, we gave up on cards. I looked around the cabin. Fang, Max, and Iggy were talking. Nudge and Angel were playing Mancala on the trays that folded down from the seats in front of them. I didn't know what Bella and Edward were doing, because I could only see the tops of their heads, as they were several rows in front of me. We tried to play Would You Rather?.

It was my turn to ask a question. "Seaweed Brain, if it still existed, would you rather return to the Labyrinth or go back to the Underworld?"

He frowned. "That depends. Why am I in the Underworld?"

"Why does it matter?"

"If I'm there because I died, what did I do to get myself killed? Or, if I was there on another quest, who did I have to see?"

"Seaweed Brain, usually I'm the one overanalyzing. Just answer the question."

"I guess the Labyrinth." He looked at Thalia. "Thalia, would you rather send a prank IM to Ares or Hades?" Percy asked Thalia.

"Um, I'd have to say Ares. I've had too many run-ins with the Kindly Ones." She turned her attention to me.

"Annabeth, would you rather be trapped in a room full of spiders or tell me why both Percy _and_ you turn bright red whenever someone mentions Mt. Saint Helens?" She smiled evilly. She had me there. I bit my lip. "Keep in mind, I _will_ find out what is going on between you two."

"Trapped in a room full of spiders," I muttered.

AN: Dang, conversations between Percy and Tyson are so awkward to write!


	14. Chinese Dragon Dance

AN: ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO MAKE ME SAY IT? FINE! I DO NOT OWN PJO, MR, OR TWILIGHT!! WARNING: ATTACK OF THE RANDOMNESS!!!!

Annabeth's POV

I fell asleep quickly that night, despite the fact that I was on a moving train, since I hadn't slept much the night before.

The next morning, I blinked several times to clear my foggy vision. I knew I was on a train, because I could hear it, but I wasn't sure exactly where. It seemed to be slowing down, so I assumed we were in San Francisco.

It appeared that sometime during the night, my head had fallen onto Percy's shoulder. His head had fallen on top of mine, so that his face was on top of my head.

I shoved my elbow into his side, and he lifted his head. "Wake up Seaweed Brain. We're here." He mumbled a little bit, then looked around the train car.

Thalia had just woken up, and the Flock looked like they had been up for a while. Edward and Bella looked like they hadn't even fallen asleep. Oh, right. Vampires.

The scenery outside the train had changed drastically. Instead of the rainy forests of Washington, we were pulling up at a station on the edges of a big city, which must be San Francisco.

I could see Mt. Tam. It looked even worse than before when I had been here before the summer started. Black clouds made it look like blue sky had never existed over Mt. Tam.

The train stopped, and we slowly exited.

Once we were finally off the train, I saw something that stopped me dead in my tracks. I saw Percy and Thalia stop next to me too. We only stayed still for one minute.

Percy whispered to the Flock, Edward, and Bella behind me, "Run. We'll distract it."

"Macedonia," I whispered. They nodded. It was a plan we'd practiced until it was pretty close to perfection at camp.

Percy drew Riptide. Thalia pulled out her spear, and I slid my knife from its covering, as well as putting on my hat.

We charged the monster.

Max's POV

I thought I had problems. That was before I met Percy, Annabeth, and Thalia. They can't even get off a stinking train without being attacked.

We ignored Percy telling us to run. Instead, we watched, slightly stunned, at the monster before us. It stood in front of a McDonalds. It was massive, and had eight or nine heads, all hissing. I heard Edward whisper, "Hydra,"

I didn't know how the other mortals were not noticing it. The hydra took up most of the floor space, and was halfway in a fountain that stuck of the wall near the McDonalds. Personally, I liked its choice of fast food.

Thalia was in front of the hydra. She was waving her spear around and making sparks that kept the hydra's attention. Percy was dodging heads, and I couldn't see Annabeth. It looked like they couldn't win.

"Do you need help?" Nudge yelled. Thalia glared at her, but then almost got killed by one of the hydra's heads. It roared in fury, and shot some green acid at the floor, which began to disintegrate. That's not good.

"Fire!" Annabeth yelled. "We need fire!" I still couldn't see her.

"Iggy, Gazzy, now would be the perfect time to pull out a bomb," I said. Iggy was already connecting a few wires on something. He looked at me and nodded.

"Guys, GET OUT OF THERE!!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. Percy and Thalia ran towards us without thinking twice.

"Annabeth?" Thalia called.

"Here!" Annabeth said. Something shimmered, and suddenly she was standing right next to me, holding an old baseball hat.

Iggy chucked the bomb as hard as he could at the hydra. We didn't stick around to see what happened next. We just turned and ran.

We burst out onto a packed street and sprinted away from the train station. We shoved people out of our way and ignored the glares we were getting.

Once we were about twenty blocks away from the train station, we ducked into an abandoned alley. We finally stopped.

I sank against the wall and tried to stop gasping for air. "What _gasp_ was _gasp_ that _gasp_?"

"Hydra," Annabeth gasped. We all sat there for a while, catching our breath.

Once we could breathe normally again, we started walking west. I assumed we were going to the beach.

"So, does that happen to you guys often?" I asked Annabeth.

"It's happened to me a lot lately since I moved to San Francisco, especially since last summer," she said.

"It happens to me way too much," Percy said. "Since I'm a child of the Big Three, monsters go out of their way to try to kill me."

"That stinks," Iggy said.

"You kind of get used to it. It's not like you have a choice."

"Why didn't mortals realize there was a gigantic hydra attacking us in front of a McDonalds?" Bella asked.

"They thought it was a Chinese dragon dance," Edward said. We all started cracking up.

"So what do we do now?" I said.

"I think we should get some lunch, then go talk to Nereus," Thalia said.

"We could go to my house for lunch," Annabeth said. "I don't think my stepmom will mind."

"Are you sure she won't mind?" Percy asked. "She might not like seeing us."

"Why? You met her last year."

"Right before we destroyed the family car. Plus, there's, what," he did a quick head count, "eleven of us, not including Total." Total looked a little offended.

"Trust me on this." He shrugged. "Follow me. My house is about two blocks away."

We continued walking down the street. Soon we stopped in front of a two story house with a car parked in front. We followed Annabeth up to the front door. She lifted a ceramic duck and took out the key from underneath.

"You keep the key underneath a duck?" Percy said.

"Oh, be quiet, Seaweed Brain."

Inside, it smelled like cookies. It reminded me of my mom's house in Arizona. A middle aged man with sandy hair and a mis-buttoned shirt walked out of the kitchen.

"Annabeth!" he exclaimed. "Is something wrong at camp?"

"Um, yeah," Annabeth said. "We're trying to fix it."

"We, as in," he turned around and finally seemed to realize there were ten other people and a dog in the entryway. "Oh."

"Right, Dad, you already know Percy and Thalia, then there's Max, Fang, Iggy, the Gasman, Nudge, Angel, Bella, and Edward." I have to say, I was impressed. She said everything without pausing to take a breath.

"You're all half-bloods?" He asked us.

"No, but we're helping the campers out." I said.

"Annabeth!" a woman who also walked out of the kitchen, "Is everything all right?"

"Um, not really," Annabeth said. "We were just wondering if we could just have some lunch."

"Sure. Um," she looked at all of us, "give me a few minutes. I need to make more sandwiches."

Soon we were eating cheese and ham sandwiches in a very crowded kitchen. Annbeth's dad and step-mom were really nice people. Well, they didn't try to attack us anyway, which is a plus.

We didn't stay long. Percy said he wanted to get finding Nereus over with. Soon, we were back to walking down the block, this time to a rental car place.

Edward and Bella left us waiting in the parking lot while they rented a car. Soon a white van came towards us. It looked old and didn't look able to go very far. Bella and Edward got out.

"Sorry, but it was the only thing that could hold eleven people and Total," she said. We started climbing in. Edward drove, Bella got shotgun, the demigods got the only row of seats, and the Flock and I stuffed ourselves in the back. Needless to say, it was very cramped. Especially when you add Total into the mix. I had Total on my lap, and was stuffed between Fang and the Gasman.

Please, Gazzy, do not reveal your new talent now.

AN: Definitely not my best chapter. Thanks to BraveMustang for the Chinese dragon dance suggestion.


	15. Trick Question

AN: OKAY, PEOPLE, YOU'RE SERIOUSLY GOING TO MAKE ME SAY IT AGAIN?! I DO NOT OWN PJO, TWILIGHT, OR MR!!!! MORE RANDOMNESS!!! YAY!!!!!

Annabeth's POV

"Bella, I think we have found the one vehicle that goes slower than your old truck," Edward said.

"Hey, my truck ran fine. Until it mysteriously stopped running," Bella said while glaring at Edward. "Tell me now. Did you or did you not ruin my truck?"

Edward grinned. "Well, it wasn't me exactly."

Bella threw her head back. "I am going to kill Alice."

Our van did seem to have a serious problem with us wanting it to go over fifty miles per hour. If Edward tried to push it over that, it would protest loudly, then start slowing down. Go figure.

Eventually, we got to the beach. It looked pretty abandoned, but there was a lone fisherman sitting on the end of the pier. He wasn't actually fishing. He was sitting on the edge of the pier with his legs hanging over the edge.

"How are you going to get down there without him noticing you?" I asked Percy.

"I have no idea. I am not dressing up like a hobo again."

Thalia was looking at us in a way that usually means she's thinking of something that will probably embarrass me for the rest of my life. Uh oh.

A few minutes later she told us her plan.

"NO WAY!!" Percy said.

"Nice try Thalia," I said, "but it's not happening."

"Percy, it's either this, or we pay a visit to your friend, Mr. Goodwill drop box. Pick one."

Percy groaned. "Fine, but if Athena tries to kill me, I'm blaming you."

Thalia rolled her eyes. "Just do it."

About five minutes later, Percy and I were walking down the pier holding hands. The theory was that Nereus would be thrown off by me and not run away until Percy grabbed him. It was a good idea, but I was about ready to strangle Thalia.

"This is going to look really strange," he said once we got down to the end of the pier.

I got a better look at the old fisherman. He had a white beard that was turning yellow, and was overweight. I could see, uh, smell, what Percy said about the stench. The guy smelled like the ocean gone wrong. Percy let go of my hand.

Seaweed Brain launched himself into the old fisherman and they flipped into the ocean.

I peered into the ocean. I could barely see Percy grabbing a. . . jellyfish?

"What the Hades?" I said. They dove deeper until I couldn't see them anymore.

Suddenly, Percy was being dragged along as a dolphin propelled itself out of the water and dove back down again. Okay. . .

I couldn't see them anymore. I scanned the water. I think I saw them once. Percy appeared to be hugging a manatee. Wait, are there manatees in San Francisco?

About a minute later, I saw Percy walking onto the beach out of the ocean. Nereus was staggering behind him. Nereus was badly out of breath, but Percy didn't even seem to be the least bit winded. Probably had something to do with the whole son of Poseidon thing.

Nereus sat down in the sand, and Percy sat down next to him. I jogged over to the others, and we joined them, forming a half circle in front of them.

"Great, an even bigger audience this time," Nereus said sarcastically, once he got his breath back. "Another question?"

"Yep. How can we get to the top of Mt. Tam?" Percy asked.

"That's all? That's too easy."

"You said that last time. An actual answer would be nice this time," Thalia growled.

"I answered you last time."

"No, you didn't!!"

"Thalia, just let it go," I said.

"Fine."

"Now, an answer would be nice," Percy said.

"The best way to get to the top of Mt. Tam is through the Garden of the Hesperides." Nereus said.

"Well, no duh, but how do we get into the Garden of the Hesperides?" Percy asked.

"That wasn't the question," Nereus said, "I answered your question. Only one question, remember?"

He sprinted down the beach faster than I would have thought possible, and ran into the water.

Max's POV

"YOU LITTLE, LYING, TRICKY-" Percy yelled after the old guy.

"Seaweed Brain! You knew we had to get into the Garden of the Hesperides, you should have asked him that!" Thalia yelled at Percy.

"It's always my fault, isn't it?"

"Um, Seaweed Brain, she has a point," Annabeth said. Percy turned around and started arguing with her, so soon we had a three way argument going. They were all blaming this on each other. It was actually kind of funny. Still, we had a job to do.

"Hey! Hey! You guys can kill each other later," I said.

"We need a new plan," Bella said.

"Like what?" Percy said.

"We could always go see if we could find the entrance to the Garden of the Hesperides on our own," Annabeth suggested.

"I think we should find somewhere to sleep," I said. "It's starting to get dark." The sun was starting to sink past the horizon.

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Percy said.

"Okay, let's get back to the van," Bella said. We all piled back into the van, which I have dubbed the "clown van".

The clown van rolled down the highway. We had all agreed that we were going to find a motel in one of the smaller cities around San Francisco. For the Flock and I, it was to stay out of the public view as little as possible. For the half-bloods, they said they wanted less people around in case a monster attacked. Edward and Bella weren't even going to stay. They were going to go hunting.

Once we got to the motel, Edward paid for the two rooms. Everyone tried to protest, but Bella just rolled her eyes in an oh-just-let-him-do-it-you're-not-going-to-change-his-mind kind of way.

We went up to the different rooms. Since we would (hopefully) only be staying one night, we only got two rooms. That meant Annabeth, Thalia, Nudge, Angel and I in one bedroom, and Percy, Fang, Iggy and the Gasman in the other. This is going to be interesting.

Inside the hotel room, Nudge and Angel got voted onto the beds. They protested, but we promised we would switch if we had to sleep here another night.

Annabeth pulled a blanket out of her backpack, and Thalia pulled out the sofa bed thing. I took the armchair in the corner.

The armchair was much more comfortable than subway tunnels. I was asleep within five minutes.

Percy's POV

One motel room. Four guys. Will they survive? I'm serious, it was like some kind of horrible reality shows some people watch because they like to laugh at people. At first, anyway.

Fang said he would take the armchair, I was going to take the sofa bed thingamabob, and Iggy and the Gasman were going to sleep on the beds. I'm not even going to go into the amount of arguing we had to do to figure out those arrangements.

Fang sat in the armchair. I was trying to figure out how to pull the sofa bed out without pinching a finger off. Why do they make those warnings so tiny? Don't they know dyslexic demigods might need to sleep while on a quest to save a centaur from a power hungry Lord of Time, with the help of a flock of part bird mutant kids and a couple of insanely rich vampires?

Okay, so maybe it wasn't all that common. But still.

After I finally got the stupid bed out, I looked around the room to realize Fang was gone. I got up to see if Iggy or the Gasman knew where he was when a leg appeared out of nowhere and tripped me. I fell down with an "oof".

Apparently, Fang had been there the entire time. Iggy and the Gasman had convinced him to play a prank on me. Fang had the power to turn completely invisible when he wasn't moving. Anything else they might want to mention? Magnetic powers, ability to change appearance, maybe even throw their voices, like a Cyclops?

Apparently yes.

We were all about to go to bed when Gasman decided to show his other "talent".

Let's just say I wasn't the only one running outside for clean air.

AN: Okay, I got a request for more from Percy's POV. I know this part was kind of short, but I will have more from Percy's POV later. I had writer's block for the first part of this chapter so. . . yeah. ;D


	16. Kronos, Janus, and Scorpions, Oh My!

AN: OKAY, PEOPLE, IF I HAVE TO PUT THIS STUPID DISCLAIMER ONE MORE TIME, I THINK I WILL EXPLODE AND THEN THIS STORY WILL NEVER BE FINISHED!!! I DO NOT OWN TWILIGHT, MR, OR PJO!! This is kind of short, but I have writer's block (I get that a lot) so this isn't my best work. Just a warning.

Annabeth's POV

I don't scream often. Most of the time, when you're in a situation that screaming is your first impulse, it's the best idea to stay as quiet as possible.

I think you'll agree this is a situation where screaming is perfectly acceptable.

I was locked in a jail cell, while I could hear Kronos talking to me. I couldn't see him, or Luke, or any combination of the two, but there was no mistaking that cold, evil voice.

_You know what choice you have to make, _Kronos said, _why don't you hurry up and make it? Janus is being very cooperative. _I had almost forgotten Janus had joined the Titans. _Maybe he needs to give you some, ah, advice?_

Two lanterns glowed to life on the wall. I could see two separate staircases coming from two directions with another row of bars in between them, so that the only way to get between them was through my jail cell. The on the left had two smaller staircases branching off of a small landing in either direction. The one on the right was winding with no hand rails, and would probably take amazing balance to walk on. The architect in me wondered idly what kind of reinforcements would be needed to keep it upright.

Janus appeared in front of me. Now the dream started to be familiar. Ever since I had met Janus in the Labyrinth, he had been taunting me in my dreams about a choice. I had a pretty good idea what my choice was between, too.

Percy or Luke.

It seemed that this was the same dream, version 2.0. Lovely.

Suddenly, I wasn't alone. Percy and Luke each came running down the stairs. Luke came down the one with two smaller staircases branching out, and Percy came down the one that seemed like it would fall down any second. Both of them were looking at me.

Oh no. Not again. I knew what was coming. Something would happen, and I would only be able to save one of them. Before I make the choice, something will wake me up, or I wake up on my own.

Apparently, not tonight.

Janus was still there. His image was hovering slightly in front of me, and I could still see Percy and Luke out the corners of my eyes.

_Choose, Annabeth._ It was Kronos and Janus together.

I had to choose between the guy who had been my crush since I was seven and the guy who had been my best friend since I was twelve. My life just can't be simple, can it?

No, of course not. Apparently, this isn't complicated enough, however. We need to throw in a deadly situation, now, don't we?

So, let's add a pit scorpion to the mix, shall we? Jeez. It stood in between the bars that separated Percy and Luke. I knew it would kill whoever I didn't choose.

I stood there and I was completely numb. I couldn't think, couldn't move, I didn't even know if I was breathing or not.

_If you do not choose, none will survive._ The pit scorpion jumped.

My screaming woke me up. I sat up and shut my mouth, and looked around the room. Thalia and the others were sitting up and staring at me.

"Are you okay, Annabeth?" Nudge asked me. I just put my head in my hands. Everyone seemed to take that as a no. Thalia got up and sat next to me on the floor.

"Nightmare?" It was very similar to when we were journeying to Camp Half-Blood, and Thalia would comfort me when I had a nightmare.

"A bad one, too," I said.

That's when the door opened.

Percy's POV

I heard a scream that I've heard less times than I have fingers on one hand. This scream meant something was terribly wrong.

The others were waking up, too. We threw on the first clothes we could find, and ran out the door. I was about to knock on the door when Fang stopped me.

"If something is in there, we don't want them to know we're here," he said. Iggy came forward with a small kit of some kind in his hand. "If this turns out to be the one lock Iggy can't pick, we'll break the door down."

As soon as he said that, the door swung wide open. Inside, all the girls were in their pajamas staring at us.

"Is everything alright?" I said, kind of lamely. Thalia shot me a withering look. I mentally smacked myself.

"No, but it's none of your business, so you all can go back to sleep now," Max said.

I looked at Annabeth. Her head was resting in her hands, and her elbows were sitting on her knees. She probably had a nightmare, I thought to myself.

"Annabeth, are you okay?" I asked her.

"Yes," her voice was muffled. "Go away." I rolled my eyes, but walked back into the room I shared with Fang, Iggy, and the Gasman.

Annabeth's POV

Percy and the other boys finally went back to their room. I knew they meant well, but I just couldn't function at the moment.

"Okay, sister, spill," Thalia told me. I looked up, and she had her arms crossed in front of her chest. "I can't recall the last time you shrieked like that, except for that time with the spider on your pillow."

"It was just a really bad dream. You know, the typical, Kronos/Luke and all that," I said.

"I don't think that was it."

"Thalia, that's all I'm going to say," I said. "I just can't think about it right now."

Angel looked at me pityingly. That made me angry that I was being pitied by a mind reading six year old.

"I'm going back to sleep," I said. Everyone gave me funny looks but laid back down. I sat there for a few hours, trying to focus on everything but what I had seen.

AN: Oh. My. Gosh. Over 50 reviews. *faints and hits head on cello endpin* Ow. THANKS SO MUCH!! Like I said before, this isn't my best chapter, but please look at my songfic, "The Night Before, Will Life Go On?"


	17. Truth or Dare

AN: I TOLD YOU IF I HAVE TO PUT THIS IN HERE ONE MORE TIME I WAS GOING TO EXPLODE. *explodes* I do not own Twilight, MR or PJO. I had to give this idea a try, but it doesn't have all that much to do with the story. POV's switch A LOT!!! Oh, and sorry to any Hannah Montana fans out there.

Max's POV

We all slept in pretty late. Apparently we had to wait for sunset to even attempt to get into the Garden of the Hesperides. Great, all day with nothing to do.

Once we all finally woke up, all of us girls were playing Truth or Dare. This was going to get interesting. Bella and Edward had come back at around eleven o'clock (that was what got us up) and Bella was playing while Edward was going to see what the heck the guys were doing. I personally don't want to know. We heard suspicious bangs every now and then, so whatever it was, someone was losing pretty badly.

"Thalia, truth or dare?" Annabeth said.

"Dare," Thalia said confidently.

"I dare you to let Nudge and Max fly with you at least two hundred feet in the air."

Thalia went really pale. She was starting to resemble Bella. What?

_She's afraid of heights, _Angel said in my mind.

_Isn't her dad the Lord of the Sky?_ I thought back.

_Yup._ Okay. . .

Anyway, Nudge and I each grabbed one of Thalia's arms and walked her to the door. We checked to make sure no one was watching. There was no one left in the motel.

We each made sure we had a good grip on her, then took off into the sky. Thalia had a death grip on us. I turned to Nudge.

"Okay, this is pretty dang familiar." It reminded me of when Nudge and I hoisted the Director in the air above the evil Itex castle. Except that we weren't in Germany, Thalia wasn't evil (that we knew, at least) and there was no castle.

After a few minutes, we landed and released Thalia. She did not look happy. Uh oh.

Once we were all back in the room, Thalia turned to Annabeth.

"Truth or Dare," she said. She had a look on her face that made me glad I wasn't Annabeth right now.

"Well, if I do truth, you're going to make me say something about how I feel about someone, and if I do dare, you're going to make me do something embarrassing with that person." She contemplated for a moment. "Truth."

"Do you have feelings for Percy? Like, not just as a friend?"

Silence.

"Answer the question, Annabeth. It's not that difficult."

Annabeth looked like she was going to either pass out or throw up. I couldn't blame her.

"I don't know," she finally said.

"Annabeth-"

"Thalia, it's just, I honestly don't know. I'm really mixed up and confused right now." She looked really upset. I knew how she felt. I was having the same kind of problem myself. Not knowing whether or not I liked someone more than just as my best friend. . .

"Okay. It's your turn then." I don't think we were going to get anymore out of Annabeth.

"Max, Truth or Dare?" she asked me.

"Dare."

Percy's POV

Don't ask me how arm wrestling can escalate into people getting thrown into walls. I missed that part.

Anyway, it was absolutely insane. The Gasman fell over as Iggy hit him in the head with a wing. Edward was originally trying to stop us from killing each other but at the moment was laughing too hard to say anything. I was having the same problem.

"Hey! People! We need to stay in one piece, remember?" I said after I could breathe again.

"Well, what should we do then? We have a couple hours before we have to leave," Edward said.

"I wonder what the girl's are doing," Fang said. So we all went next door and Iggy picked the lock again. The door opened. What we saw has to be one of the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life.

Fang's POV

This. Is. Hilarious. I haven't laughed this much since the incident with birdseed. . .

Max had her wings out, her arms under armpits, and was doing the Funky Chicken.

After a while, we all stopped laughing. I think it took a full five minutes. Max was beet red, and looked like she wanted to punch somebody.

"What was that?" I said.

"Truth or Dare," Bella said.

"You want to play?" Thalia said. "And no, you can't stay and watch without playing."

"Fine," we all said. We sat down in the circle.

"Max, your turn."

"Hm, Fang, Truth or Dare?" she asked. Crud.

"Dare," I said.

"I dare you to. . ." she thought for a while, and then started laughing. Oh no. "Wear pink and sing a Hannah Montana song of your choosing."

Thalia's POV

Okay, this is priceless. I've known Fang for about three days, and he's said a total of maybe twenty words. He dresses in all black, all the time.

Nudge found him an old pink shirt that comes down to her knees. Annabeth and I figured out how to connect Daedalus' laptop to the internet and went on YouTube. We showed him the lyrics.

I'm not going to get into how bad he sings. I'm just going to say it was actually worse than the original version. Yep, you heard me.

So anyway, we continued playing. The dares got stranger and stranger. Nudge had to be quiet for a full five minutes while the rest of us talked about random stuff, and the Gasman had to impersonate a girl's voice for the rest of the game. Other stuff happened too, but these were the worst. Or best, I guess, it depended on how you looked at it. It was my turn again.

"So, has everyone gone?" I said. Everyone nodded. "Okay then, Annabeth, Truth or Dare?"

"Why do you always pick me?"

"Because this is my only way to either make you do something funny or get information out of you."

"Fine. Truth."

"Three words: _Mt. Saint. Helens_."


	18. the Super Heavy Purple Backpack of Doom

AN: I EXPLODED AND YOU PEOPLE STILL DON'T KNOW THAT I DO NOT OWN TWILIGHT, MR, OR PJO?! Thanks to BraveMustang for helping me get over my writer's block, which I've been getting quite frequently. Mwa ha ha ha, the Super Heavy Evil Purple Backpack of Doom finally makes its appearance!

Annabeth's POV

This is not going to be pretty.

"Um, well, you see," I started stammering.

"Just spit it out, Annabeth," Thalia said, rolling her eyes.

"Okay, well, Percy and I needed to find out what was using Hephaestus's forge, and it turned out they were these evil telekhines," I began.

"What the heck are telekhines?" Max said.

"Dog-faced sea-lion people," Percy said. His face was about the same color as Nudge's shirt that Fang had had to wear.

"Anyway, they were going to kill us, but Percy said he had a plan and told me to get out of the volcano through the Labyrinth. It was really horrible and everything, and I had this prophecy, and soIkindofkissedhim," I sped through the last couple of words. I was sure my face had bypassed tomato red long ago.

"You did- you kiss- you and- you- YES!" Thalia said.

After that, there was complete silence.

"And yet you two still deny feelings for each other?" Max said.

"It was just for good luck!" I protested, but part of me remembered my dream.

"Denial," I heard Thalia mutter. I glared at her.

Percy was looking at me strangely. I really can't quite put a finger on his expression. It was relieved and. . . maybe a little sad? What the Hades? Did he maybe have some kind of feelings like that for me? Did I have feelings for him that way? I think I'm actually starting to get a headache from all of this.

I have found the one thing that, as a child of Athena, I have trouble comprehending.

Oh, joy.

Percy's POV

Can I crawl into a corner and die? Please? No, of course not, that would take away the prophecy child and we would have to wait for Nico to be sixteen. Or they would have to wait and I would be. . . Oh, forget it.

Still, that might be better than having to face Thalia right now. Seriously, she's like some kind of weird matchmaker, which I find a bit disturbing, considering that she's one of Artemis's Hunters.

Anyway, she was constantly looking at Annabeth and I with a curious look on her face. She's probably imagining situations to get us together.

Ugh.

We were all in the clown van, like Max calls it, and were driving towards Mt. Tam. Storm clouds completely obscured the top of the mountain from our view. Even if I didn't know what was up there, I would have known it was completely evil. So, of course, that's where we were going. _Of course._

First, we had to stop and pick up supplies that every mutant/demigod/vampire rescue party should have. Mainly, plenty of snacks.

We parked outside of a CVS. We attracted plenty of stares as we walked in. It's probably not every day normal people see eleven people and a talking dog walking into a CVS.

Once we were inside, The Flock went over to replace Max's backpack, which had ripped on the way to the van. Annabeth, Thalia, and I were looking for something we could eat in a car without making a complete and total mess. So, we got some chips, candy of a wide variety, and pretty much all the other junk food we could find.

We got in line. There was only one person ahead of us, but the checkout person was acting like we didn't have a centaur to rescue before the sun went down.

The Flock joined us in line. Max was holding a light purple backpack.

"This was the most durable of all the ones over there," she said. She appeared to have issues with the backpack's color.

Finally, we checked our stuff out. Bella and Edward paid for everything, despite our protests. We climbed back into the clown van and headed for one of the most evil places on earth. Woo hoo.

Annabeth's POV

We were driving up a sinuous road that led to the top of Mt. Tam. Our clown van groaned every time the road swerved. It didn't help my nerves any.

It was quiet in the van except for the moans coming from the van. So I jumped about a foot when Thalia gasped suddenly.

"Percy!" She said. "Remember the prophecy?"

Percy seemed just as confused as I was. "Which part?"

"The part about this quest being familiar," she said. "Think about it. It's almost exactly like our quest to save Artemis!"

"You're right," he said, "taking a train, having a bunch of different people on this quest, going to Mt. Tam, it's so similar." Then it seemed like something dawned on him. "But doesn't that mean-"

"Yes!" Thalia went deathly pale.

Thalia practically threw the Flock out the back of the van. Edward had already stopped the van. Percy practically shoved me out of the door and we rolled on the pavement. Thank the gods this was an empty highway.

BOOM!! I heard something explode with amazing force. It must have been the van, because there was nothing else big or close enough to make that much noise.

I wasn't entirely sure exactly where I was. I was facedown with my legs awkwardly under me. It was a very uncomfortable position.

Percy was next to me bracing against the shield that Tyson must have repaired for him. It had probably saved both of us from being killed by an exploding van. I stood up and Percy did too. We looked around us. There were pieces of van everywhere.

The Flock seemed to appear out of nowhere, but I realized they must have flown away once they were shoved out of the van. Thalia was transforming Aegis back into her silver chain bracelets. Edward and Bella walked out of the small bushes that lined the road.

"What was _that_?" Max said.

"Lightning bolt," Thalia said. "Must have been Kronos."

"You guys okay?" I said. There was a chorus of yes' and yeahs.

"Thanks," I told Percy. He shrugged.

"No problem."

"So, where do we go from here?" I asked.

Thalia bit her lip. "I think this way." She pointed into the fog in front of us.

"Okay," Max said. "Into the fog where we can't see anything at all we go."

So we walked. A small breeze blew around us, and both the fog and the Mist cleared. In front of us was a narrow dirt path up the side of the mountain, straight through the Garden of the Hesperides.

"How did we get here?" Bella said.

"I think it's what you would call pure dumb luck," Percy said. "Which is weird, because usually we're the unluckiest people on the planet."

"Be quiet!" I said. "Remember Ladon?"

"Oh, right," he whispered.

Max rearranged her backpack on her shoulders. "I think I put too much food in this thing," she whispered. "It's so dang heavy. You know how storms get names when they reach a certain force or whatever? I think they should do the same thing with backpacks, like name them when they reached a certain weight."

"Well, we could call it the Super Heavy Evil Purple Backpack of Doom," Nudge whispered. We all stared at her. "What? It fits."

We all shrugged and kept moving. Soon we saw the gigantic dragon. It rivaled Kampe in the running for ugliest dragon-thing in Greek mythology. Each head was like something out of a bad sci-fi movie, and I could smell its breath from the careful distance we kept from it. It was asleep.

"Come on," Thalia whispered, so quietly that I could barely hear her. She led the way around the edges of the garden.

The Hesperides appeared out of the shadows and regarded us calmly. We stopped for a moment, slightly stunned at their sudden appearance.

The one who appeared to be the leader said calmly, "Ladon, wake!"

"Run!" Thalia yelled.

There were sounds of hissing coming from our left. We didn't notice because we were already sprinting up the side of Mt. Tam.


	19. This Sucks

AN: Seriously, people, I don't own anything, or I probably wouldn't be writing on fanfiction. See? I can be logical if I want! Um, to the person who had left an anonymous review saying UPDATE! about five billion times, it's okay, I get the message. You want me to update. I'm not that dense, so you don't have to type that out. ;D I know this is really, really, insanely short, but it was the best place to stop this chapter.

Percy's POV

We ran as fast as we could away from the Hesperides and the dragon of eternal bad breath, as I like to think of Ladon. The vampires could obviously go faster, but they stuck with us since we had somewhat of an idea of where we were supposed to be going. At least that's probably what they thought, anyway.

Don't ask me how we did it, but somehow we reached the summit of Mt. Tam. What we saw made us stop dead in our tracks.

There were monsters. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of them. Hellhounds, the Minotaur, _empousai, _telekhines, _dracaenae, _you name it, it was there. There were also some half-bloods there as well. The sight of all the monsters made my blood run cold.

Almost like they were one being, they turned their gaze toward us. There was no sign of Kronos/Luke, which was a good thing. It looked like that was the only good thing at the moment.

In about thirty seconds they had us surrounded. I uncapped Riptide, and everyone else drew their weapons, if they had any.

I stabbed a telekhine and it vaporized, but another one soon took its place. I could see that the others were already fighting furiously, but it wasn't going well. I saw Annabeth and Thalia ganging up on a huge hellhound bigger than Mrs. O'Leary. Max was beating up a half-blood who had lost both his shield and sword and was now begging for mercy. Fang was fighting with a hellhound while it was distracted with Nudge who was fluttering over its head. I couldn't see Angel. Iggy and the Gasman shouted, "Duck!" while an explosive went off somewhere in the huge crowd. The vampires were blurs of speed.

Still, we were outnumbered twelve to a hundred thousand or so. So after about five minutes or so, it was not surprising when we were all captured with our arms behind our backs. Edward and Bella probably could have broken away, but for some reason they allowed themselves to be captured.

"What should we do with them?" One of the telekhines barked.

"We'll just hold them prisoner until Lord Kronos returns," a half-blood said. I almost did a double take when I recognized Ethan Nakamura. I exchanged a glance with Annabeth and Thalia, though. So Kronos wasn't here. That was weird.

I forgot about that as we were shoved forward. We walked into a building that hadn't been here when I'd been here last summer. Inside, though, it was like a dungeon. We started angling downwards. It started getting colder and colder.

Finally, they led us to some old fashioned prisoner cells. They had the classic iron bars and chains. They pretty much screamed dark and depressing.

They put chains on our ankles but not on our hands. It took them a while to put the chains on us because we kept kicking them in the head whenever they tried. Eventually, though, we were all chained up and basically going nowhere fast. We could move about eight feet or so in either direction and that was it.

They had to split us up into different cells. Annabeth, Thalia and I were in one, Fang, Max, and Iggy were in the one on our right, Angel, Nudge, the Gasman, and Total were in the one across from them, and Bella and Edward were in the one across from us. There were other cells, but it didn't look like anybody was in them.

Max was the first one to speak. "Well, this sucks."

"Yeah, sorry for getting you guys into this mess," I said.

"Last time I checked, we signed up for this," Bella said.

"So, what do we do now?" Thalia said.

"We still have our weapons," Annabeth said. We all looked at each other in the darkness.

"Well, that was rather foolish of them," a familiar voice said to my left. All of our heads spun around.

"Oh my gods," Annabeth gasped. "_Chiron_?"


	20. Bubbles, Jerky, and Zebras

AN: I don't own PJO, MR, or Twilight, but maybe one day. . . *evil cackle* Have any of you tried to write something Chiron is saying? It never turns out right for me!

Max's POV

The Flock and I have this problem with rescue missions. We always end up getting captured, caught, or almost killed. So far, on this particular one, we've done all three. Rescue missions never seem to work. Yet, we always jump on the bandwagon whenever an opportunity comes around.

Usually, though, we at least find whatever we're rescuing. So it wasn't too much of a shocker when Annabeth pointed out that the voice that had seemingly come out of nowhere was actually their missing centaur and mentor. The weird part was that the idiots in the Titan Army put Annabeth, Percy, and Thalia into the cell next to him.

I could barely see Chiron. From what I could tell, he appeared to be wearing a tattered orange shirt like Annabeth and Percy's that said "Camp Half-Blood" on it, and had the lower half of a white stallion that was smeared with dirt.

"Well, Annabeth, Thalia, Percy, I wish I could see it's good to see you, but that would make me sound as if I wanted you locked in a prison cell."

"That's okay, Chiron," Annabeth said. "We get the point."

"Well, now what? It's great we found Chiron and all, but last time I checked, we're still chained to the wall in a dungeon!" I said.

"Oh, Chiron this is, well, do you guys want to introduce yourselves, or do want me to do it?" Annabeth said.

"We'll do it. I'm Max."

"Fang."

"Iggy."

"The Gasman."

"Angel."

"Nudge."

"Total."

"And then there's Bella and Edward," Annabeth said.

"So you're Carlisle's family?" Chiron asked.

"Yes," Edward said.

"Um, hello? Still kind of stuck in a prison cell here?" I said.

"We could just break out of here, run around trying to find our way out, get out after days of searching, get captured, and have the whole process start all over again, except this time without our weapons, because even the Titan Army isn't _that_ stupid," Thalia said helpfully.

"Maybe we shouldn't leave," Annabeth said. "Maybe we should stick around." Wonderful. We've been down here a grand total of ten minutes and Annabeth's already lost it.

She seemed to notice us staring at here like she had gone insane, which I was pretty sure she had. "I mean, we could find out what they're planning on doing next."

"Annabeth, whatever they're planning on doing, they're already doing it," Percy said. "Kronos isn't here. The idiots he left behind aren't exactly the people he would choose for strategists."

"Kronos isn't here?" Chiron asked.

"Not that we could see," Thalia said. "Which, I guess, isn't saying much, because we were kind of being attacked by every monster known to demigods."

"That's odd," Chiron said. "He's been trying to interrogate me ever since I've been here."

"What has he been asking you?" Percy asked him.

"Information about camp, mainly. He also was curious about where the campers disappeared to."

"Of course he was," Thalia muttered.

"So, what happened after we left camp?" Annabeth asked.

"Once it was obvious we were losing badly, I ran into Percy's cabin and sent an Iris message as fast as possible to Carlisle. I explained as much as I could in a half of a minute. Some of the Titan army captured me, and, as they say, the rest is history."

Then there was silence. We sat there for a while, none of us knowing what to say. What are you supposed to say when you're trapped in a Titan Army prison?

"What are we going to do now?" Nudge asked.

"I don't know," I said.

"I think we should implicate Plan BJZ," Iggy said.

"I'm scared to ask, but I'll do it anyway. What is Plan BJZ?" Annabeth asked.

"It's a plan only to be used in extreme cases when captured. It stands for Plan Bubble, Jerky, and Zebras. When the evil people who are holding you captured come to get you to trick/torture/torment you, Gazzy fills the bubbles with a horrible scent, everyone else grabs a zebra, and throws beef jerky at them," I explained.

"I don't want to know how you guys came up with that plan," Percy said.

"It's a long story."

"I'll bet."

We sat in silence for a minute. Annabeth started cleaning her dagger. Iggy and the Gasman were talking quietly in the corner huddled over a mass of wires. Fang was blending into the wall. Total was trying to fly with his baby wings. He could get off the ground for about two seconds. Edward and Bella talking. Percy took a sand dollar out of his pocket.

"What's that for?" I asked.

"I have no idea," he said. Annabeth looked up.

"Why do you have that?" she asked.

"My dad gave it to me for my birthday last year," he said. "He told me to 'spend it wisely'."

"You can spend a sand dollar?" I said. He shrugged.

"Apparently."

"Weird. So, let's take a vote. Who votes for Plan BJZ?" Surprisingly, only Gazzy and Iggy raised their hands. "Who votes for getting out of here?" Everyone else raised their hands. "Alright. Let's do this!"

Percy pulled out Riptide and slashed through his, Annabeth's, and Thalia's chains. Edward and Bella just broke theirs. Then they broke the bars for all of the cells. Percy came in to ours.

"Hold still," he told us. Quickly, he cut through the chains. He then did the same for everyone else. It took a bit longer for Chiron since he had four legs chained up, but eventually we were all free.

"Now where?" The dungeon exited on two sides. I didn't remember which way we came from, and it didn't look like anybody else did, either.

"This way!" Annabeth pointed to door.

"Deductive reasoning again?" Percy said.

"Do you have a better plan?" she snapped.

"No."

"Then let's get out of here."

It turns out that deductive reasoning isn't a good foundation to base your escape plan on when escaping from a dungeon. Because you might just stumble onto a Titan Army war meeting, with the missing Kronos himself explaining something. This is when running is useful.

Needless to say, we got out of there fast.

Percy's POV

Good news: We escaped from the dungeon and appeared to be heading the right direction.

Bad news: We had the leaders of the Titan Army chasing us all over Mt. Othrys along with many of their monster friends.

We didn't have anywhere to go. We couldn't go back to the Garden of the Hesperides because it was the middle of the night. The entrance to the Labyrinth was gone, of course. So what did we do?

We ran around in circles.

We passed Atlas, and he screamed insults at us. Wonderful. Who doesn't want a deranged Titan holding up the sky yelling at you while you run from an army of monsters?

It wasn't long before they trapped us. They knew the layout of Mt. Othrys way better than we did. What would you expect?

You probably wouldn't expect to see a pure black Pegasus and a dragon flying straight at you while an army of centaurs with foam fingers, soda drinking hats, and lethal bows running up the side of a cliff.


	21. The Party Ponies Crash a Party

AN: UNFORTUNATELY, I DO NOT OWN MR, PJO, OR TWILIGHT!!!

Percy's POV

I had always wondered what happened to the Party Ponies after they left Camp Half-Blood after our journey to the Sea of Monsters. Now I know.

They all wore T-shirts that said "Party Ponies: West Coast Chapter". They galloped at the Titan Army shooting paintballs and arrows with boxing gloves on them. Some of them looked familiar, so they might have been there when they saved us from the _Princess Andromeda._

Some of the army managed to escape the centaurs and attacked us. An _empousa _was suddenly in front of me. Joy.

Pretty soon we were surrounded, but we were doing better than the last time. Of course, having a bunch of centaurs, not to mention a very angry Pegasus and dragon, on our side made it a whole lot easier.

I was trying not to focus on anything, just kind of letting my ADHD take over. I was holding my own against several monsters when a hellhound surprised me. I didn't stop it in time, and it bit my leg before I managed to stab it with Riptide. It wasn't a life threatening injury, but I couldn't put weight on it.

I probably looked pretty ridiculous, because I was trying not to get killed while balancing on one foot. I never did have the best balance, so I was flailing around like an idiot.

My shield pretty much saved my life. Note to self: Thank Tyson again.

Blackjack kicked a half-blood in the head. _Come on, boss. Let's get out of here._ I clambered on, and Blackjack ran a few steps, trampled some monsters, and launched himself into the sky. We hovered over the scene for a few moments.

Peleus was snapping at every monster that came within five feet of him, and Annabeth and Thalia were fighting like mad people. The Flock was doing a pretty good job of kicking half-bloods' butts. I couldn't see Bella and Edward. The Party Ponies were amazing. They vaporized row after row of monsters with their arrows.

Everything slowed down. Blackjack couldn't move his wings fast enough and started falling in slow motion. Thankfully, we landed on some very soft _empousa._ Apparently they weren't immune to Kronos's power either. They attempted to attack me, but I easily killed them.

That's when I realized something. Kronos's power wasn't working on me. I could move just as easily and as quickly (which wasn't very fast) as before. What the Hades?

No time to think about now, I thought to myself. Just then, however, something random popped into my head. _The sand dollar._

I pulled it out of my pocket. It was glowing slightly.

"Awesome," I said to myself. "It buys _time._"

Kronos was laughing evilly and not paying any attention to me. He probably assumed I was somewhere in the crowd struggling to get away from his power. I figured I probably had about five minutes before he realized I was moving somewhat normally. I was hobbling around because of my leg, but still managed to get over to where Annabeth and Thalia were fighting monsters in slow motion. It looked like an action movie, where everything was slowed down.

Now I had a problem. I was free form Kronos's power, but what about everyone else? I looked down at the sand dollar. It technically was a sea creature, right? I thought that I might be able to expand its power like I had with the seashells at Geryon's ranch.

"Um," I said, "Release everyone from Kronos's power?" Instantly all the monsters and the fighting went back to full speed. "No! I mean, just my friends." The monsters were under Kronos's power again. Huh. That was pretty cool.

_Boss?_ Blackjack said. _That was cool, but can we leave now? _

"Sure," I scrambled on again.

By now, Kronos had figured out what was going on, and in the form of Luke with golden eyes started walking calmly through the crowd of monsters. He pulled out his scythe before I could think.

_Thunk!_ A backpack slammed into his head, knocking him off balance. Annabeth stood there looking very angry.

"Remember that next time you want to lock me up in a jail cell, Luke," she said, so quietly that I almost couldn't hear her.

I offered a hand and she climbed onto Blackjack. Chiron was helping Thalia onto his back. Edward and Bella seemed almost to appear out of nowhere.

"What happened?" Bella asked.

"No time," I said. Blackjack practically threw himself into the air, where the Flock was already hovering, waiting for us. Bella and Edward followed the Party Ponies off the side of the cliff. Somehow they managed to scale it without falling on their heads. I figured it had something to do with the fact they were moving almost too fast to be seen.

We soared over San Francisco. The centaurs must have been going slower than when they were in Florida because I could still see them. If they wanted to, they could have been in Forks by now.

We flew around for a while. Soon we came to an empty forest that was on the California-Oregon border, according to Blackjack.

We landed among the trees. Annabeth and I slid off of Blackjack, and my lag buckled underneath me. I sat down, and started fishing around in my backpack for ambrosia. I found it and ate a square. Almost instantly I felt better.

I looked around the clearing. The Party Ponies were head butting each other, shooting paintballs at each other, the usual. Chiron was talking to Edward and Bella. The Flock started walking over to me.

"What the heck was that?" Max said.

"Basically, that was Kronos, Lord of Time, in Luke Castellan's body, controlling time, trying to capture/kill us. Oh, and I finally figured out what you can buy with a sand dollar," I said.

"A sand dollar buys _time_?" Annabeth said. "That's insane."

"Hey, it works. Did you hit Kronos with the Super Heavy Evil Purple Backpack of Doom?"

"No, I hit him with the Normally Weighted Nice Blue Backpack of Goodness," Annabeth said. "What? Nudge isn't the only one who can come up names randomly on the spot."

"What now?" Max asked.

"We should probably get back to Forks. Who knows what could have happened in three days?" Thalia said. She had a point.

"Let's go."

AN: Wow. Over 100 reviews. Holy. Crud. Sorry it took me so dang long to update, but I've been so busy and sleep deprived. Not to mention writer's block, but I think the sleep deprivation thing had something to do with that. . . CONES!!!!


	22. Campfire

AN: I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING! Ok, so I'm sorry this has been taking me so long, but I've been so busy! I've been practicing all week for a music festival thing, then I have another one next week, and I'm going on a trip, so I probably won't be writing as often as I want to. :( This chapter is for everyone who thought I wasn't put enough Edward and Bella into this story. Sorry!

Bella's POV

As nice of people as the demigods and the Flock were, I couldn't wait to get home. I missed Nessie, who I hadn't been seeing much anyway before we left. She was spending a lot of time with Jake in La Push. Billy wasn't doing well health-wise, although according to Jake he was still teasing everyone who came near him.

It had been hard, up at Mt. Tam, to ignore the instincts screaming at me to fight my way out until I wasn't in danger. I had squashed down and ignored those instincts, because I knew we had to make sure the others were safe. I mean, Edward and I were the fastest of the Cullens, but we weren't _that_ fast. We couldn't get everyone out while they were being attacked and losing – badly. So we had let ourselves be captured. Not a pleasant experience.

Now we were going home, except this time we had a herd of centaurs with soda drinking hats and foam fingers following us. Not to mention a pegasus and dragon. Speaking of the dragon. . .

I'm not sure if the Flock didn't notice the gigantic copper dragon when we were running from Mt. Tam or what, but their faces when the dragon hovered above the clearing was priceless. Really, another dragon didn't surprise me, not after the one in the Hesperides garden almost attacked us. I didn't think it meant any harm to us; I could hear Percy, Annabeth, and Thalia talking to it and calling it Peleus, and it showed up with our rescue party. It was pretty ironic; the rescue party needed a rescue party.

Anyway, when Peleus landed in the middle of the clearing, Max stood there with her mouth open, the Gasman looked like Christmas had come early, Angel appeared to be reading its mind, Nudge looked terrified, Fang disappeared which flipped me out for a second, and Iggy didn't know what was going on. Very funny.

After a while, we sat around a fire Thalia had started for us. Edward and I didn't need it, but it made the clearing cheerier. It was actually quite peaceful; I was sitting on Edward's lap leaning backwards into him, and everyone was exchanging stories and telling jokes. It was that kind of feeling that everything was right even when it's not.

"So, you guys said you had been on quests before this one?" I asked the demigods.

"Yeah," Percy said. "I've been on four, not counting this one."

"I've been on three," Annabeth said, "if you don't count when I was trapped on Mt. Tam the last time."

"This is only my second," Thalia said, "for which I'm thankful."

"What were your other ones?" Angel asked. I wondered why she had asked; couldn't she have just read their minds?

"Um, well, the first one we had to rescue Zeus's lightning bolt, which we thought had been stolen by Hades, but was actually by Ares to start a war," Percy said.

"The second one we had to find the Golden Fleece," Annabeth said.

"You didn't _have_ to do anything," Chiron interrupted, "except stay at camp, which you didn't, and both you and Percy were almost killed several times." Annabeth and Percy looked sheepish.

"The third one we went to rescue Artemis and Annabeth," Thalia said.

"That was horrible," Percy said. "Both Annabeth and I had to hold up the sky."

"You had to what?" Max said.

"Really long story."

"The last one we had to go into the Labyrinth,' Annabeth said.

"That was the worst," Percy agreed. "I almost got killed by my step brother, I blew up Mt. Saint Helens,"-Annabeth and him went red-"Pan died, Daedalus died, Kronos possessed Luke, the camp was almost destroyed, and we lost so many campers and friends."

"Not a good summer," Annabeth agreed.

"It's so weird to hear you talk about the gods and Greek mythology so casually," I said.

"It was weird for me at first, too," Percy said. "You get used to it fast."

"I believe we should all get some sleep," Chiron said. "We've got a long ways to travel tomorrow." Everyone found somewhere to sleep and started saying their goodnights.

Edward and I got up and ran away from the group. We found a place to sit by a river and just sat there for a while, watching the water.

"So what do you think of everyone?" I asked Edward.

"They're definitely interesting. The Flock has had way too many horrible things happen to them. The demigods' lives are so convoluted that even I'm having trouble keeping everything straight." He laughed a little.

"I feel so bad for them," I said. "I just can't imagine living how they do."

"Really? I thought you would know."

"What do mean?"

"Bad luck: check. Someone wanting to kill you at every corner: check. Do I need to go on?"

I sighed. "Okay, I see your point. But still!"

"I know what you mean. It's rough." We sat there for a while, just watching the river go by.

Max's POV

The Flock was huddled up in the trees. I was leaning against the trunk, and was sitting on a wide branch. Fang was directly below me, with everyone else scattered all around. Like always, I was having a hard time relaxing falling asleep, especially with a bunch of people I hadn't known for a particularly long time.

After about an hour of not getting any sleep what so ever, I decided I would fly around for a few minutes. I jumped down from the branch, spread my wings, and barely avoided crashing into the ground. Note to self: Climb down from tree, _then_ fly.

It was a beautiful night. Lots of stars, the breeze was cool, and the moon was bright. What more could a mutant bird kid want?

How about _not _getting snuck up on by one of your Flock members?

"Fang!" I shrieked. I had dropped about ten feet, so I slowly climbed back up so I matched his altitude. "What the heck was that for?"

Fang shrugged. Thank you, bird kid of many words.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Flying."

"No, duh. I meant why."

"I saw you leave and figured you couldn't sleep either, so I thought I might join you."

I sighed. We flew around for a few minutes before landing in a nice tree not far from where everyone else was. We sat on branches facing each other. I waited for Fang to say something; needless to say, I was waiting there for a while.

"What do you think of everyone?" I finally said, because I had a feeling that if I waited much longer to say something, we would sitting there all night.

"They're different."

"Nah, really!" Lots of opportunities for sarcasm tonight, huh?

"I mean, they're not like most people. Kind of like us. They're outcasts."

"Not really. They seem pretty happy."

_Being normal isn't happiness, _the Voice chimed in. Joy. The Voice has been watching Dr. Phil again.

"Yeah, yeah," I said. Fang looked at me like I was crazy. Well, I was hearing voices, right? Well, one Voice, anyway. "The Voice again."

"Oh."

"I kind of see what you mean. Like, they're not supposed to exist, like us, and they get attacked for it. The outcast thing, too."

"Yeah."

Silence.

"Let's go back; maybe we'll be able to sleep a bit," I said.

We flew back to the clearing in silence. This time, I actually got some sleep.

AN: Cruddy ending to a chapter, I know. Um, I'm going to be gone for a while on a trip with no internet access. I won't be able to update for at least ten days. So I'll either come back with a ginormous chapter or lots of smaller chapters (I hope!). Okay, to everyone who said I haven't put enough Twilight into this, just wait. The Cullens, Edward, Bella, Jasper and Alice especially, are going to play a huge part later. I have it all figured out, so trust me. You just might have to wait a while. *evil laugh*


	23. Return

AN: Still don't own anything! YAY!! I'M BACK!!! THE LAST OLYMPIAN IS OUT!!! I READ IT AND IT'S SOOOO GOOD!! This chapter is just to get me back into this story. The AN ast the bottom explains it all.

Annabeth's POV

The journey back to Forks was much faster without having to rely on mortal transportation. Well, there had to be one upside to a demigod's life somewhere, right?

I couldn't relax. It may seem like the quest was over, but somehow I doubted our difficulties were. One big, obvious, problem was the fact that Camp Half-Blood was still under Titan control. It also seemed like my subconscious was trying to inform me of yet another problem, but since I already had a good idea what that was about, and was trying not to focus on it, I shoved into the proverbial back of my brain.

Everyone was silent for the most part. Every now and then someone would say something to break the silence, but no one seemed able to keep a conversation going. It was almost as if we expected to be attacked any minute, which was, let's face it, a very possible thing.

Since we were traveling up the coast, we stopped in La Push. We had filled in Chiron on al that had happened since he had been captured. He took the news of Kronos' army following us well. He was surprised, actually, that they hadn't attacked already, when we were weak. That was actually why we were in La Push: to fill the packs in on what was going on. You would have thought they would have found out by now. I mean, why else would about a hundred demigods show up after their camp got _attacked_?

Anyway, so when we got to La Push, it was about sunset, and there was a group of people having a bonfire by the beach. I could pick out Jacob and Renesmee as we got closer. It was a cheery group, and the bonfire seemed inviting after a few hours of clinging on to a centaur's neck.

Jacob saw us and waved us over. We sat down cautiously around the circle. Edward and Bella introduced us to some of the Quiluete people we didn't know. There were hot dogs, which were gone within one minute. I'm not exaggerating in the least.

After eating and warming up a little bit, we were able to relax and calm down. A few people were telling stories about old times and legends. It was absolutely fascinating. Somebody was in the middle of telling the story about the third wife when I looked at Percy. Even in the dim firelight, it was possible to see that his face had completely drained of all color.

The ground shook under us.

AN: Okay, so before you start plotting revenge for a short, cruddy chapter after I haven't updated for over three weeks more than I said I would, let me fill you in on some stuff that's been going on.

Coming back from my trip, I had an eight and a half hour delay (no, that's not a typo!). I've had two horse shows, and then had to prepare for one I have coming up. I had a concert a couple days ago, and have another one soon. Not to mention the fact I've been reading like a maniac and plotting out a couple stories (sorry, some of them won't be posted on fanfiction) while trying to write this one when it seems like every time I sit down I have another problem or chore that needs done immediately, and I've been editing a couple of music video thingies. I tried out for color guard at my high school I'm going to next year, and made the team. Add that to homework, and that's why I haven't been updating. Sorry!

(And yes, I know my AN is probably longer than the actual chapter. Deal.)


	24. Explanation Needed, Not Given

AN: I am insane.

That is the only explanation for why I'm in all honors, color guard, horseback riding, and orchestra. The only explanation. And the only reason why I'm trying to write four stories at once.

I apologize about the shortness of the chapter. I'm simply trying to get this story finished so it can RIP and you readers (and me as well!) can have an ending.

I'm just going to give this story an ending, then come back when I have time and edit it like hell before starting on a sequel. I'm sorry if it's abrupt. I'm having a really hard time writing the Cullens since I've lost interest in those books. . .

Oh, and I don't own anything.

Max's POV

I think I've mentioned before that my geography is worse than a monkey with amnesia, so I had no clue if earthquakes were common in Washington. I mean, I could tell you how to get to Washington, but I probably couldn't point it out on a map, let alone tell you where the closest fault line is.

"Percy? Are you okay?" Annabeth asked. His eyes were wide, and his face was paler than the ice in Antarctica. His eyes were completely unfocused, like he was zoning out or thinking about something really, really, hard.

Very slowly, he shook his head. I've only known him for all of a few days, and I knew he wasn't exactly the melodramatic type. So, either he had been replaced by some kind of robot or something, or we were all screwed.

Since this is a part of my life, I'm going to go with the latter.

"Come on, it was just an earthquake," Jacob said. That seemed to snap him out of whatever trance-like state he was in. He stopped looking out over the cliff looked back to the vampires and werewolves.

"How fast can we get everyone in La Push and Forks at least fifty miles east?" He demanded of them. Their eyes widened in shock.

"Um, probably twenty four hours?"

Percy cursed. "Maybe a bit less, but not much. Why?" Edward asked.

"That was no ordinary earthquake. That had nothing to do with Poseidon." Okay, I'll admit, he lost me there. "That was too strong coming from that far away."

"How would you know?" Somebody, who I assumed was a La Push native, asked.

Percy rolled his eyes. "Long story. But trust me, we have maybe two hours before a wave the size of the Empire State Building is going to smash into these cliffs we happen to be standing on!"

I felt a wave of guilty relief. The Flock was going to be okay. The entire city of Forks might be destroyed, but at least _we_ were going to be okay.

I knew how incredibly selfish this was. I was supposed to be saving the world. But my Flock _was_ my world. I looked around at Edward and Bella, Jacob and Nessie, Annabeth and Percy, and realized this was their world.

"We'll help," I said quickly. "We can, you know, fly people away, or something." I knew the Flock was probably looking at me like I was insane, but I just had an epiphany here. They could deal.

"We're going to need help," Bella said. "My dad used to be the chief of police here. I'll bet he has some connections, and he wouldn't ask many questions."

"Wait, why wouldn't they do that already?" I asked. "Don't scientists monitor this kind of stuff?"

"They're going to need all the help they can get," Percy said. "This probably won't be the kind of stuff they're used to seeing."

"You mean tsunami rescue people won't be used to seeing a tsunami?"

"When was the last you remember a tsunami crashing into the Northwest?"

"Are we just going to stand here arguing about doing something or actually do something?"

"Right. . ." Percy said.

Some guys were already running off into the woods, taking off their shoes and shirts as they did. I had to snap a couple of times in Nudge's face to get her to pay attention.

"Focus!" I snapped, and as I did so, a man emerged from the woods.

His eyes were a bright green, and his face looked as though it had been weathered by sea, like rocks. He wore shorts and a slightly tattered Hawaiin shirt.

Percy obviously saw him too. "Dad?" he said, and I could hear the "What the hell are you doing here?" in his voice.

"Percy," he said, sounding slightly out of breath, "You must leave!"

"Well, yeah," Percy said, "I figured that much."

"I mean now!" the guy said. "Let the others take care of it! Take the rest of the campers and go!"

Chiron looked concerned. "Poseidon, surely we can wait until everyone-"

"No, you must leave now!" he said emphatically. "Take the flying children with you!"

Despite the seriousness of the situation, I couldn't help but bristle. Children? Really?

"Hey-" I started, but Percy looked at me with a "shutupshutupshutupshutup" expression on his face. Well, fine then.

"Now!" The guy repeated. Percy turned toward the forest. Chiron followed, and the rest of us had no choice but to follow. The pack and the Cullens stayed behind, though. I figured they would get everyone out alright.

Chiron gave the demigods a ride while the Flock flew. It took us about five minutes to get to the Cullens house where the demigods were already loading up Pegasi. I couldn't figure out how they knew the earthquake was that big of a deal, but right now it didn't matter. All that mattered was getting out of there.


	25. The End?

AN: I own nothing.

Stats as of time this was posted:

35,420 words.

25 chapters.

191 reviews.

22,567 hits.

91 favorites.

81 alerts.

Holy. Crap.

People, this is it. The final chapter of Collision. Finally.

I had no idea how popular this story would be when I started it seventeen months ago. Really, you guys are the best. You all stuck with this story through the spasmodic updates because of my insane crazy hectic life, and you all deserve a mental hug. *hugs everyone who reviewed, favorite, alerted, and read this story* Thanks so much!

As mentioned before, there will be a sequel. When? Don't expect it for a month or two. But it will be written, in this same category, so look for that this summer. Also, for any fans of the Hunger Games trilogy, I just started a story for that, and that one will probably be quite lengthy.

****EDIT**** Since there seems to be some confusion on this matter, assume that at the end of this, The Last Olympian picks up. Therefore, from here, Percy goes to spend time with Rachel.

Here's the final chapter.

Max's POV

It took us two days of flying east to reach New York, including all the stops and breaks. I didn't really know where we were going to go from there, but I knew my first thing on my to do list was call my mom.

Apparently, it was Percy's, too.

"Hey, can we stop for a minute?" he shouted to just about everyone. Somehow we squeezed just about everyone onto the roof of an apartment building.

Thank god, er, the gods, for fog. We didn't need more publicity. At least, not that I knew of. I'd have to talk to mom first, though. A sighting of bird kids in New York City would definitely circulate everywhere.

So Percy left through a stairway leading down into the rest of the complex while we basically tried to entertain ourselves when we only had about three square feet per person, not including Pegasi.

About half the demigods and Pegasi left for the top of the neighboring apartment building, leaving us with a bit more than before. Someone broke out a couple decks of cards and we played the ultimate game of slapjack. Since we had about twenty people trying to slap a single pile of cards, I think we should all be grateful we all left with all ten fingers intact.

Once Percy came back we resumed our journey, circling the building first just to make sure we didn't leave anyone behind. We flew past a window with a lady waving to us and a flabbergasted man looking over her shoulder.

"Hey, Percy, is that your mom?" I yelled over to him.

"Yep, and my stepfather."

With surprisingly only two more incidents (one involving a very startled flock of pigeons and the other being a close call with a plane landing at JFK airport) we made to a whole bunch of strawberry fields and landed near the road.

The demigods flocked toward the fields while Percy, Annabeth, and Chiron hung around for a while and talked with us.

"It was nice meeting you," Chiron said to us.

"Same here," I said for the Flock. "This is going to be hard to explain to my mom."

"You can try," Percy said, "but people tend not believe stories involving Greek myths. Something to do with Mist."

"Eh, I can try anyway."

"If you're ever in the area, just stand by the tree over there and someone will see you eventually," Annabeth said.

"And if you see any flying bird kids, that'll be us."

And with that, we left.

About ten minutes later, after finding some change for a payphone in the city, I was talking to my mom.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Mom."

"Max! How are you?" Just got done running from a possible tsunami and Greek monster combo attack of course, what else would I be doing?

"Mom, have I got a story for you."

Percy's POV

Chiron, Annabeth and I were starting to walk up Halfblood Hill when Chiron stopped me.

"Annabeth, go on ahead." After glancing at the seriousness on Chiron's face, she went.

"Percy." His voice sounded tired and I didn't blame him, but this didn't sound good. "As you know, that was no ordinary earthquake in Washington. Most likely it was a sign that Typhon has escaped."

It looks like my summer just started.


End file.
